Good Night
by A991807
Summary: At the end of Digimon Adventure 02 they claimed to have created a "perfect world". Or did they? What would really happen if the Digital and Human Worlds came in contact with each other? How would their very different ideologies react? This is that story.
1. Prologue

_**Good Night**_

"For me, the principal fact of life is the free mind. For good and evil, man is a free creative spirit. This produces the very queer world we live in, a world in continuous creation and therefore continuous change and insecurity. A perpetually new and lively world, but a dangerous one, full of tragedy and injustice."

_**Joyce Cary**_

Prologue

Tokyo, December 2035 A.D. The city sleeps under a veil of mist. A sudden gale blows through the lonely streets. As the wind passes over discarded wrappers and other refuse it carries them onward through the labyrinth of apartments, office buildings, parks, and convenience stores. The wind pushes past the litter and pounds against a skyscraper trying vainly to topple the monolith. But the building holds against the wind's advances and the cold does not penetrate its walls.

While the building's exterior is plagued by the advances of nature, its interior is filled with silence. The cubicles, offices, and hallways have been abandoned for the night and stand ever vigilant waiting for the new day. But all is not quiet. At the very peak of this artificial mountain one office is still filled with light. The light illuminates the floor, revealing lavish persian rugs of the highest quality. The walls adjacent to the door are lined with bookshelves containing texts of all shapes, sizes, and languages. A rosewood desk faces the doorway. It is a plain rectangular desk covered with writing utensils, souvenirs, and lastly a small lamp, the lone source of light in a dark world. Behind the desk is a chair fit for a king and a floor to ceiling window overlooking the vast metropolis below.

However it is not the expensive furniture or even the breathtaking view that dominates the room, but the figure sitting behind the desk watching a world bathed in shadows. A man in his prime, tall, fit, and dressed in an immaculate black suit. His short, jet-black hair is combed neatly with painstaking care that even the most critical observer would admire. But, what is most striking about him are his eyes. They are a deep blue color that contrasts greatly with his dark hair and suit and his gaze appears to penetrate even the thick fog outside. Two strange creatures share the room with this mysterious figure. One is perched on a coat rack its three toed feet are tipped with claws that help it grip its perch. Its veiny blue wings are folded neatly on the sides of its round body and a white skull adorns its forehead and its bright eyes are studying the city as intently as its human companion. The final inhabitant of the room is napping contently on the mysterious man's lap. At first glance it appears to be a cat with black fur, but upon closer inspection, one cannot miss the strange purple tips on its ears and tail, or the gloves it wears on its forepaws.

The seated figure suddenly speaks. His voice is strong but quiet so as to not wake his sleeping companion. "Any news?"

His winged companion keeps his eyes on the city below but responds quickly in a voice filled with mischief. "Oh, yes. The fools are actually going through with it! I'm glad we're exempt. Thanks for that by the way."

"Everyone should be exempt. Humans have been fighting for thousands of years and their violent decisions have never been used to justify second-class citizenship. Digimon should be treated with the same dignity. You as a virus type should be aware of this! Why do you think I campaigned for all of you after the Delhi incident?"

The creature responds in a more serious tone, "I'm _aware _of the situation, don't fault me on that. I'm only highlighting the fact that not all humans possess your common sense. Why do you think I picked you for a partner instead of some rich or powerful leader's brat?"

The human chuckles softly and his lips turn up into a mischievous smile. "I assumed it was for my dashing good looks! That was such a long time ago. Now look at us. I'm sure you're proud of your decision now."

The digimon responds with more chuckling and a toothy grin. "Oh undoubtedly, I was strong once but when I met you I had lost everything. Now look at us! We are both more powerful than before. I do miss the dark gears though, so much more effective at convincing others than human debate."

A friendly silence fills the room as the two reminisce about the past. Then the creature speaks, now completely serious, "Are you sure we're going through with this? Remember this is your world and we're playing by your rules. We can't just turn into digi-eggs if we fail… Well I can, but you can't. Remember that my friend."

The man looks back down upon the city as a lone car travels along the road. His face is serious again and his voice is one of a man with a cause. "I know, but if someone doesn't do something soon those "fools" you mocked a little while ago will make your entire species into slaves. But, if we're lucky and my plan works, well let's just say you and I could be heroes."

"Hmmm, I've never been called a hero. Tyrant, monster, messenger of evil, jerk, you name it I've been it, but never hero. I like the sound of that. I'm in. I'm also looking forward to making fools out of those "Chosen" brats."

"Excellent. Then let project "Revelation" begin."

The conversation finally wakes the sleeping feline. She tosses and turns a little and rubs her eyes in irritation. The irritation and fatigue are obvious in her voice as well, "What are you two talking about? Do you know what time it is?"

The man's serious face breaks into another smile. "Nothing of importance, my dear, please go back to sleep."

"Alright but you have to stay quiet this time." She smiles back, settles into a comfortable position, purrs and falls asleep.

The winged sentinel grunts, "Childish diva! You shouldn't treat her so leniently. She could become a liability."

The man looks down at the sleeping creature in his lap. "I think she'll do fine."

He looks out upon the city once more taking in every detail. He then rests comfortably on his chair and closes his eyes. "Well, good night."

End of Prologue


	2. Chapter 1

_**Good Night**_

Chapter 1

"_Finally, my rebirth has come. Accursed children, I should have dealt with the boy earlier! My plan was perfect! The dark gears were mine; any digimon I wanted was mine to command and then Angemon! Thankfully when the fool who would be emperor freed my soul from the Dark Ocean my return was imminent. Now for Vengeance." _

Odaiba elementary school, Classroom 3A, 6th period. The room is abuzz with the excited chattering of unsupervised students celebrating their momentary freedom from authority.

But some students are not so animated in their freedom. In a far corner of the room, a pair of boys are taking an untimely nap. But that is not the only thing that sets them apart. One of the boys has unkempt hair that stands up wildly above his head and sets him apart from his orderly classmates. The other boy's defining feature is a pair of goggles perched just above his forehead. The goggles are old and worn and the lenses seem to have been replaced at least once but the boy wears them as if they were a badge of honor.

All of a sudden the crack of a ruler against a desk silences the room and shocks the boys awake.

"Quiet class, we wouldn't want to distract Mr. Kamiya and Mr. Motomiya from their busy schedule. I'm sorry boys, I didn't know that my class on Inter-world relations was of no importance to the two of you." Mr. Fujiyama had been teaching at the school for years and had dealt with all kinds of children. These two, however, were a different story. They were worse than their parents. They were so bad in fact he had to ban them from the school cafeteria after they started the most costly food fight in the school's history, it took weeks for the janitors to scrape all the mashed potatoes off the walls.

"Sorry Mr. Fujiyama," Kaito Kamiya was the first to scramble for a good excuse, as usual. "We just spent so much time on our homework last night that we thought we'd take a well-deserved rest."

"Yeah what he said," Kiseki Motomiya jumped on the opportunity presented to him. His father was the CEO of a fortune 500 company but he wanted his son to grow up humble so he sent him to his own elementary school. Unfortunately his friendship with the son of another "prestigious" graduate of his class led to a criminal duo more dangerous than Bonnie and Clyde. They even dressed alike in blue shirts and white soccer shorts.

Mr. Fujiyama raised an eyebrow quizzically. "Well if you did your homework would you please teach the class what you've learned about the first digital migration?"

Kaito fidgeted nervously while he desperately tried to remember something, _anything_, about the first migration. "Uh… It happened in 2003 a year after the end of the second Myotismon incident?"

Kiseki perked up immediately, "Yeah and when the barrier between the two worlds was weakened after the um, what he said, digimon began to pass into the human world."

Mr. Fujiyama gave a small smile and decided to let the boys off easy this time. "Very good boys, yes the digital barrier was weakened significantly after the energies released by both the digi-destined and Malomyotismon opened several holes in the time-space continuum. As a result digimon began to pass freely into our world and began to form bonds with humans. Now who can tell me what the effects of the first migration were? Mr. Ishida?"

Another boy stood up. Michel Ishida, son of the first man to reach Mars, was named after his French grandfather. Unlike the two other children we've seen his blonde hair might have been a little unkempt but his personality was calm and collected. "Well after the incident it was chaos for the United Nations when they tried to regulate the wide spread immigration. Then the governments of earth were approached by a representative from the digital world named Gennai. He convinced them that he could get the tears closed if the governments of the world acknowledged the digi-destined as an inter-dimensional police force and provided them with appropriated funds from their collective treasuries. They would also be responsible for controlling immigration and incidents involving digimon."

Mr. Fujiyama nodded, obviously impressed and took up the topic. "Quite right, the UN and NATO were so overworked and didn't have any experience in dealing with the immigrants that they were happy to hand over the authority to Gennai and the digi-destined. At first even they were having difficulty, but after five long years of work all of the tears were closed and every digimon-human pair was accounted for. However, the digi-destined were given the authority to use their D3s to access digi-gates and allow inter-world trade and negotiations. Because of their success the group was given the official title of the Inter-World Regulation Committee or IWRC." He turns to the class looking around for another volunteer or "victim" as the student's called it. "Does anyone else know about pre-TTSG politics? Ah Miss Izumi, please tell the class about the miscount in 2015?"

Yumi Izumi was as bright as her father had been at her age. She was an A student with excellent manners. She began to speak in the same well-informed tone she always used, "The records the IWRC took indicated that despite past estimates it seems that only 59% of the world's population was partnered with a digimon and only 10% of those teams possessed a digivice. As a result most digimon could only digivolve by accident or after rigorous training. This meant that the IWRC had to ask the newly formed digital government to send powerful digimon to act alongside earth's police forces. In order to move these reinforcements into our world while keeping in contact with their superiors, a new mode of travel had to be created. Every major government in the world raced to create the first man-made digi-gate. Finally, in 2030, Japan succeeded in creating the Tokyo Time-Space Gate and modern Inter-world relations began."

Mr. Fujiyama nods sagely and then remembered to look at the clock. He gave a start as he saw the time and another when he noticed that Kaito and Kiseki had fallen asleep, again. "Thank you Miss Izumi, an excellent presentation, as usual. Tonight's homework is to study the Delhi Incident and the Riot Years, class dismissed."

The students leave their chairs, even the two sloths in the corner, and leave the school chatting animatedly. Kaito, Kiseki, Yumi, and Michel are joined by three new children.

Shuu Kido stumbled out of class carrying his regular inventory of school supplies, barely able to hold them all in his bag. Like his father, he wears a pair of glasses perched precariously on his nose. His clothes, on the other hand, are pristine. He wears a pair of khaki pants, a white-collared shirt neatly tucked in, and a blue sweater to finish the ensemble.

Hiroko "Hiro" Takaishi looks a lot like his father blonde unkempt hair and a face anyone could trust. He's wearing a green sweater and a pair of tan shorts. He's as avid a reader of literature as his father is an author. The only thing missing is the hat his father was famous for. He dashes out of the school dragging along the last of the children.

Akira Saruwatari, where Hiroko is the spitting image of his father Akira, though not feminine, shares his mother's heart, and her whistle. His clothes on the other hand are a style all his own. He wears a brown jacket over a yellow t-shirt and jeans. His backpack is slung over one shoulder and as he walks out of the classroom his eyes seem to be focused in the distance as if on an indistinct target. That is until Hiro accidentally drags him straight into a row of lockers.

"Ouch! Hey! What was that for?" he said as he rubbed the newly formed bump on the left side of his head. Hiro looked down at him, rubbing the back of his head nervously.

"Well if you were paying attention this wouldn't happen so often!" He helped Akira off the floor and onto his feet. "Now come on let's go! They're waiting for us!"

The duo ran outside to see the others gathered around the front entrance waiting for them. Kaito and Kiseki were chatting about soccer, and Yumi was helping Shuu pick up the spilled contents of his school bag.

"What took you so long? You're approximately 5 minutes and 34 seconds late!" Yumi checked her digital watch irritably as she handed Shuu his math book. "Shuu! Why do you carry all these books? We don't even have math homework today!"

Shuu shruged his shoulders which almost made him drop his notebook. As he scrambled for it Hiro looked at Yumi apologetically, "I'm sorry Yumi, our English teacher made us stay late for talking during the lecture, and then I had to get Akira down from the moon."

Akira looked down at his shoes dejectedly. "Yeah sorry about that I don't know what I was thinking…" His friends looked at each other guiltily remembering the reason for their friend's dark mood.

Kaito patted him on the back and whispered, "Are you okay? I miss uncle Tosuke too but come on cheer up a little he wouldn't want you to be like this. So cheer up okay?" He waited for Akira's nod and then announced to the whole group, "Alright let's go pick up the little guys and get something to eat!" The others cheered in assent and headed off down the road chatting jovially again.

Half a kilometer away Aurumon smiled to himself.

He looked like an owl to the casual passerby but if they looked closer they would realize that no owl could have metal plates grafted to his legs and metal flaps in place of tail feathers for advanced aerodynamics. But the strangest thing about him was also his greatest asset, because instead of eyes he saw through infrared scopes and he heard through electronic sensors.

He was the perfect intelligence agent, being able to watch his target from afar while remaining discreet or moving to more viable positions. Which was why he'd been surprised when he'd been ordered to watch these insignificant children! What secrets could they hold? Their digimon were all low level so they couldn't pose a threat to any enemy worth his salt and it was obvious that they had no access to the IWRC. So why were his superiors so interested in watching them?

All of a sudden the other reason he hated this assignment appeared. A purple bunny-like creature suddenly flew into sight 300 feet to the left. "Harrumph, the runt has no sense of discretion. Why did they pair me up with this amateur?" As he voiced his irritation the creature flew onto the roof next to the tree he was perched on.

"Jeez old man I might not see as far as you but I have pretty big ears. Anything to report? I'd like to place my bet soon. Maybe I'll even beat Demidevimon this time!" Where Aurumon was calm and professional Tsukaimon was childish and obsessed with gambling, but for some reason the superiors tolerated him. In fact they even let him carry their personal messages!

"What is it that you want, boy? Some of us have real work to do, go bother someone else!" Tsukaimon frowned angrily and attempted to look threatening by standing on his hind legs and puffing up to enormous size. Aurumon ignored him so he let out the air like a deflated balloon.

"For your information I have a very important job! The boss even told me some classified information that I was going to share with you. But, I guess I'll go share it with someone else if I'm "bothering" you." He began to fly away as Aurumon quickly snatched him with a talon.

"Very well then what is it? And it had better be worth my time!"

The little fiend smiled and whispered four words in the old bird's "ears", "One has a digivice."

….

Taichi Kamiya thought he had a pretty good life. He had a loving wife, a great cook by the way, a son who was just like his dear-old-dad, and to top it all off he had the best job in the world. He got to visit the digital world all the time, and his hero status made his diplomatic missions a breeze.

That is until recently. A couple of years ago the mess in New Delhi almost started a world war. It took forever to sort that mess out, it almost didn't happen. Thankfully at the last second the Obsidian Corporation had sorted the whole thing out and made the politicians see sense, but even then their were problems. Because, while the IWRC was occupied with the incident, inter-world crime sky-rocketed out of control.

Turns out bad people can corrupt digimon as easily as a control spire. Car thieves, muggers, gangs, the mafia, terrorists, militias, and rogue states started causing trouble. There was even a war that consumed all of Africa. Tai was ordered to go there to personally put down the war with Wargreymon. Thankfully it hadn't come to that. Obsidian stepped up to do its part and the conflict was resolved in six months.

Tai had to hand it to those guys. Whoever was in charge there knew what he was doing. Now Tai had to deal with the disgruntled leader of the digital world. Apparently using digimon to participate in a human war made him very angry.

"Why does it always have to be so complicated? I always have to deal with these jurisdiction conflicts! Why don't they assign another representative to this case? I wish Agumon was here!" Tai said, as he walked through the whitewashed halls of the Tokyo IWRC building. 'No honey, I need him at home today, augh! Why doesn't she just go get her own digimon to boss around!' Just then Tai's head of security, Shinji Watarai, came into view standing in front of the main conference room's large double doors. He was flanked by two Taomon and his partner Kotemon, all looking serious.

"Sir, I advise against this. We have no idea what he's capable of and you don't even have a partner to provide security!" Shinji said. He was looking worried for the first time Tai could remember.

"You're not saying you can't handle it Shinji? Is this the same man who stood up to the UN and demanded we get this assignment? I wouldn't be going in there if you'd stayed quiet like I asked." Tai chided while poking Shinji in the chest. They were both dressed in regulation suits, but Shinji's was pristine. Every thing done up perfectly. The only thing betraying his calm demeanor was the way he kept wiping his brow with a handkerchief.

"Yes sir but I didn't think he'd come in person. I thought he'd send a representative to handle it. That I could handle, but dealing with the leader of the Royal Knights himself. You'd have to be suicidal to take on a digimon like that. These are two of my best operatives and Kotemon can digivolve to mega, but I'm telling you Mr. Kamiya if you don't pull this off… There's a strong likelihood he'll kill us all."

Tai looks serious for a moment. Then he cracked his signature smile and patted Shinji on the shoulder. "Then I guess I'll pull it off! Drinks are on me after I'm done."

Shinji tried one last time to convince his superior to stand down, but to no avail. Tai Kamiya walked into the room with his head held high. He didn't know what he was going to see but he was sure he could handle it.

He did, but just barely. The first thing he noticed was the security detail. If he thought Shinji was being paranoid apparently whoever planned the security detail for the Royal Knights was even more paranoid. A dozen Knightmon where standing at attention on either side of the room, armed to the teeth and eyeing Tai cautiously. Three dozen more were at the ready outside the building if reinforcements were needed.

Of course they had a right to be paranoid. The royal knights were the Digital equivalent of Obsidian, the UN, and the IWRC all in one. They came to power ten years after the second Myotismon incident.

Evidently when the first digital migration occurred the Digital World was still reeling from the Digimon Emperor's subjugation of the population. The migration was an even bigger problem as the digimon fled their rudimentary villages and communities for the stability of the human world. Those that were left behind struggled for supremacy with warlords forming their own armies in every region.

Then, out of nowhere, a group of like-minded digimon formed their own organization to fight for peace. Through training and sheer force of will they were able to digivolve several times and fight their way to victory, gaining countless allies, crushing the war bands and forming the digimon of the Server continent into a united coalition of communities under their regulation.

After learning of this the IWRC considered negotiations with the Royal Knights. But, they made the first move, sending a representative, Sorcerymon, with an armed detail of thirty knightmon through the TTSG right into the middle of Tokyo demanding to see the leaders of earth.

Their show of force worked, and even now Earth governments showed the Royal Knights the same respect, maybe even more, than the most powerful human leaders. Not even political cartoonists would touch them, and that's saying something.

As Tai finally turned to face the leader of these warriors, the being that was said to have singlehandedly destroyed an army of Ultimate Level Digimon, the being that was rumored could attack an infinite number of times in the blink of an eye, the being proclaimed a savior by free Digimon everywhere, he began to understand why. He was HUGE.

He towered over Tai, the knightmon, and the cyclopean chair made specifically for larger digimon. He could barely fit in the conference room and it was obvious that a repair crew had hastily fitted a giant door into the outer wall to allow his entrance. But his size wasn't the only thing that impressed Tai.

He was wearing a suit of black armor with gold trim and a white cape with a blue interior adorned his shoulders. Factor in his humanoid shape and Tai could swear he was a mouse staring up at one of the knights of old. He was calm but with a cold rage waiting under the surface. Tai could see it in his eyes. 'Shinji wasn't kidding,' he thought to himself.

Tai put on his most winning smile and got ready to make what could be his final first impression. "Good morning your lordship, I hope your stay has been comfortable? I am Taichi Kamiya, the foremost ambassador to the digital world and a chairman of the IWRC. I trust we can negotiate peacefully?"

The giant looked down at Tai. His stare wasn't filled with contempt but was cold as ice. He hadn't even moved when Tai had introduced himself (most digimon gave him a level of respect on par with a hero). Then he spoke in a voice that shook the foundations.

"Greetings Taichi Kamiya, I know who you are, but I shall give no quarter when you represent those who would use my people. I am Alphamon, and I am not here for pleasantries. Proceed to the business at hand."

Tai mustered all his courage and began the official negotiations, "Lord Alphamon we understand that you are outraged at the atrocities committed by humans in conjunction with their partners but I assure you that we at the IWRC and the UN are doing everything in our power to ensure that the digimon are treated with the respect and dignity that they deserve. We are also working to ensure that this doesn't happen in the future. We hope that we can continue to have peaceful relations with the Royal Knights and offer our most sincere condolences."

Alphamon considered Tai for a moment before proceeding, "Child of Courage, I've heard many beings speak of things like respect, dignity, and peace but few actually believe in them. I believe that you are one of those few, and I thank you for your past heroism. But I can not judge your entire race based on the words of one honest man. What if you are being deceived by those who you represent? What if the leaders of your world are merely waiting for the chance to strike at us while our eyes are on you? No, I must see proof that the people of your world are willing to make amends for their actions before I can talk of peace."

Tai, for the first time in years, was actually afraid he might lose this confrontation. If Alphamon had been tempermental, sad, or condescending Tai wouldn't be so concerned. But the Knight spoke deliberately, truthfully and without emotion. The coldness Tai had seen in his eyes hadn't been hate, he realized that now, it had been resolve. Tai himself had shown that same resolve several times and, if his adventures were any indication, you couldn't win against someone like that.

But as Tai was beginning to lose hope the door burst open and two digimon stepped into the room. The first was Sorcerymon, advisor to the Knights, who looked like a short man dressed in a blue and white jumpsuit with many zippers and a cape covered in runes. He wore a witch's hat on his head and carried a crystalline staff in his right arm. He was known to be sympathetic to the human cause, and though he would never admit it, he knew humans since before the First migration.

"My lord, I have left my post outside to deliver good news! This creature comes from the human leader of Obsidian bearing a message of friendship," he said. Then he turned to the digimon behind him and motioned for it to come forward.

Tai was now both afraid and curious. How did Obsidian know that the most powerful being in the digital world was here? And more importantly, what was the good news? Was it a message declaring support for military action from the knights? Obsidian had always been about protecting virus digimon. Were they sacrificing mankind for the benefit of the Virus community? Or were they hoping to make a profit from the war? He turned to look as the newcomer stepped forward.

The creature's appearance surprised Tai. It looked just like a patamon, but its fur was purple instead of orange and it seemed more laid back than anyone in the room. It had a small pouch attached to a belt that went around its waist. It unzipped the pouch proudly and flew as high as it could to drop a letter into Alphamon's outstretched hands. Its confidence impressed the Knight and he addressed the creature with a voice filled with just a hint of mirth, the first Tai had heard. "Well young one," he said, "What do you think of this message?"

All eyes were on the creature as it replied, smiling mischievously, "Well, big guy, I bet it's the best news you'll hear all day!"

Alphamon widened his eyes with surprise but rather than crush the creature like an ant, as Tai expected, the Knight lifted Sorcerymon in one hand and handed him the letter with the other. Sorcerymon opened the envelope and whispered its contents in his master's ear. Alphamon's eyes widened even more as he turned to his advisor and asked, "Is this true?" Sorcerymon nodded his assent and the room was filled with a tense silence.

The silence was broken when Alphamon let out a hearty laugh that shook the room even more than his speech. "You made a wise bet young one! Sorcerymon give this boy something for his trouble and be sure to give your leader my thanks!" Alphamon said. As he set Sorcerymon down to fulfill his orders he turned to Tai with a glint of mirth still in his eye. "Child of Courage it appears you spoke true. I apologize if I seemed cold, but now that I am sure of your sincerity I shall continue to offer your people my hand in peace. Farewell, and may we meet again in happier times!"

Alphamon turned towards the doors he had used to enter and signaled for his bodyguards to process out before him. Sorcerymon followed and tipped his hat to Tai as he passed. Soon the entire spectacle was gone and Tai was left with an empty room and a crisis averted. He barely had to lift a finger the entire interview!

He stood up shakily and whispered under his breath, "Thank you Obsidian… I owe you, again." He walked out of the room and came face to face with a smiling Shinji, a rare sight indeed. "I don't know what happened, but I think we just saved the world!"

Shinji's smile doesn't lessen but his snort is filled with contempt. "Tai," he says, "I was right here. If that little rabbit hadn't shown up this whole building, and everyone in it, would be nothing more than a memory."

"Any idea what was in that letter?" Tai asked as he wiped the sweat from his own brow. Shinji turned towards him and adopted his monotonous debriefing voice.

"Apparently Obsidian's president was able to twist the Security council's arm and get the jurisdiction to extradite all the leaders of the Africa conflict and their digimon to the Digital World. So the Royal Knights are happy because they can handle the affair to their liking, confident that those responsible for the conflict are punished justly, and we're happy because we just avoided a war the likes of which have never been seen! Looks like you really hit it off with Alphamon too. His peace offering sealed the deal, good work."

Tai laughed and patted Shinji on the back, "I told you I'd pull it off," he said. "Now I've got to get home and tell the wife the good news. We'll have those drinks I promised soon alright?" Shinji just laughed and nodded, motioning for him to go.

As he left the building Tai walked down the stairs humming happily. That is, until he saw that he wasn't alone on the stairs. The small purple digimon from before was waiting patiently looking up at Tai expectantly. "What are you still doing here?" Tai said a little surprised and a little curious.

The digimon smiled the same mischievous grin it had used when addressing Alphamon. It reached into its pouch, pulled out an ornate envelope and handed it to Tai. "Well it would be impolite to leave without giving you your invitation now wouldn't it?"

End of Chapter 1


	3. Chapter 2

_**Good Night**_

Chapter 2

"It seems my plan has hit a snag. The world has changed greatly since I was last free. The barriers of time and space are full of holes. More digimon leave this world for the human world with every passing day. A wise decision when one considers the alternative. It seems that every fool with a strong arm is trying to be a king now. The boy did more damage than I thought. It might be wise to consider earth as my next destination."

Tsukaimon was having a busy day. He'd woken up in the morning thinking it would be a day of snoozing on the roof and taking quick trips to the minimart down the street. "I guess I lost that bet," He mumbled as he flew away from the IWRC building and a very surprised Tai Kamiya.

Earlier that morning….

After fishing his favorite chocolate bar out of a shopping bag and settling into his favorite napping spot Tsukaimon was ready to dream the day away. That is until a ShadowToyAgumon upended a bucket of water on him.

"Wake up errand-boy you're needed in the president's office," the creature droned in its usual bored voice.

'What is _wrong_ with these guys?' Tsukaimon thought, 'Do they ever take a break?' The digimon resembled a group of black Lego blocks put together in the shape of an Agumon. While Tsukaimon was the president's number one messenger, these guys were just office level bureaucrats, and they still treated him like a kid!

"Fine, fine, I'm up!" He said as he flipped off his back and shook the water out of his fur. "It wouldn't kill you to wake me up a little less violently next time!"

The other digimon looked at him with a twinkle in its normally dull, black eyes. "Oh I tried that," he said, "I thought this would be more interesting. Remember, the president might find your antics amusing but Demidevimon does not."

"Yeah, yeah, I know. It wouldn't kill you to lighten up a bit!" Tsukaimon shot back to what, he now realized, was an empty roof. "How do those guys move so fast?" he wondered aloud as he began his descent.

The small creature flew down a few floors and into the open window of his home/office. Obsidian employees weren't forced to live in the primary office building but Tsukaimon thought it would be easier to live there given the nature of his job. Well, that and the free doughnuts, those were good too.

He wasn't the neatest individual, but he thought he had a pretty good system. He would put all his candy bar wrappers in one corner until they formed a pile a yard high, and then he would toss them out the window. It worked great! That is until the wrappers landed on someone's head.

Then he had to sit through a scolding from Raremon, the head of waste disposal. Tsukaimon shuddered thinking about how many baths he had to take to get the stench of that walking garbage dump's breath out of his fur.

He took his trusty mail pouch from its place on the room's empty bookcase and flew out into the hallway. He had to pass a lot of ShadowToyAgumon on the way to the elevator and almost bumped into a Vi-Elecmon carrying a stack of files to his office.

"My bad!" He said as he ducked into the elevator. Unfortunately, as he turned to fasten his pouch, he realized that he was sharing the elevator with his least favorite co-worker.

BlackGatomon was the President's personal assistant, although Tsukaimon knew she was just a glorified house-pet. However she did get her job done perfectly (and never let him forget it!).

"You're late," she said, as she kept her eyes on the elevator's steady ascent. "I can't believe Damian has kept you around this long! You're so incompetent!"

"Nice to see you too, princess!" he replied. "What gives? I thought today was my day off. Why's the Boss calling me into the office?"

She shook her head and rolled her eyes, "How should I know?" she said, "I'm not his keeper, that's Demidevimon's job!"

Tsukaimon saw the perfect chance to get back at her for the "incompetent" remark. "Awww," he said in his most gushy voice, "So the king doesn't tell the wittle pwincess evewything. Poow baby!"

Unfortunately he instantly regretted his decision as she leapt upon him with a blood curdling rage.

Meanwhile Gazimon, the president's secretary had finally gotten the reception room in perfect order. "Ah," he said as the last chair went in its place, "That's much better!" He was about to return to his desk and enjoy a well-earned cup of tea when he heard the strangest noise.

All of a sudden a ball of claws, hissing, purple fur, and yelping, flew out of the elevator and straight into Gazimon. As he saw this whirlpool of chaos descending on his pristine office he began to exclaim in horror, "Waiiiiiit!" But it was too late. He was taken up by the chaos and began to fight desperately to get out.

Then the door to the president's room slammed open and the three digimon collapsed onto the floor. Gazimon's salvation came in the form of the president's partner, the all-feared Demidevimon.

"Well, well, it seems the errand boy is here. We've been waiting. Oh, and thank you, girl, for tearing up our secretary's office," he said as his golden eyes swept over Tsukaimon and BlackGatomon. "Gazimon, I apologize for their stupidity. Please feel free to take the rest of the day off, the president has called up some Vegiemon to clean up the mess."

Gazimon nodded gratefully, grabbed his briefcase, and entered the elevator. As the doors closed and he descended to the lobby he was glad he could get away from the room. No one wanted to get on Demidevimon's bad side.

As the elevator closed, Demidevimon turned to the two disheveled digimon standing before him and began to speak in a slow deliberate voice, "Girl, if I may? What part of arranging for next week's affairs does, KILLING A MESSENGER fall under?"

BlackGatomon, naturally, replied by citing her workload, "There are hundreds of factors to account for! I don't need this rodent mocking me while I'm under this much stress! Where's Damian I want to talk to him!"

Demidevimon silenced her with a glare and answered in a cold voice, "He's not in. He had some business to attend to. I was asked to stay here and handle anything that might come up. He also told me to keep his departure a secret from the staff at large to keep the event preparations running smoothly." He turned to Tsukaimon and handed him a stack of letters. "The plain one is to be delivered first," he said, his tone suddenly business-like, "Take it to a digimon dressed like a wizard two-hundred feet south of the IWRC building he'll help you get in."

Tsukaimon flipped through the letters. All but the first were decorated with beautiful designs. But it wasn't the designs that impressed him the most. It was the names and addresses written on them. He looked up at Demidevimon with a look of disbelief and said, "You can't be serious! These are A-list VIPs! How am I supposed to get a letter to them with all the security! I'll be lucky if I'm not locked in a tiny cell for the rest of my life!"

Demidevimon just continued patiently. "You'll have help, we've sent an agent to provide backup. But first we'd like you to check on Aurumon to see if he has anything to report. Remember, you deliver the president's personal messages, you represent him, have some backbone!"

Tsukaimon saluted his superior, grabbed the letter and pressed the down button on the elevator. But the time it took the doors to open gave him a sweet, sweet glimpse of BlackGatomon's frustration.

"What do you mean he's not here? We have to go over all the arrangements! Are you hiding him? Because if you are, I swear, I'll rip you limb from!" Tsukaimon ducked into the elevator to avoid the inevitable confrontation.

"You better have some good backup lined up for me Boss!" he mumbled under his breath, "I can't believe I have to deliver all these, AND find that old geezer!" Then he noticed that a slip of paper had been hidden in-between the letters. As he read the hurried scrawl written on it, he recognized the president's handwriting. He finished reading, grinned and looked at the ceiling. "You always know how to make my day, don't you Boss?"

….

Tsukaimon landed on a nearby building and flipped through the letters to find the nearest address. "Let me see here… Izumi works in the IWRC research labs across town, Motomiya's office is at the top of the "noodle" building (seriously! He couldn't come up with a better name!), Hida's law offices are in Kyoto, that's gonna take awhile, the Ichijoujis' house is on the west side and let me see…."

His eyes suddenly widened as he read the rest of the addresses. "A fashion show in _Milan? _A TV station in New York? Test flight at Cape Canaveral? CAPE CANAVERAL? How am I supposed to get there? Even with the ROOT system it'll take me days to deliver all these!" He shook his head, beginning to panic, and shouted over the empty rooftops, "Come on Boss, you've never given me an impossible job before! Work your magic and get me out of this!"

As if in answer, the air in front of him begins to distort and a robed figure appeared. Tsukaimon's shock was so great that he fell onto his back and had to struggle to get up. He checked to see if he dropped any letters and then took a look at the strange figure before him.

The stranger looked like a human dressed in brick-red robes with a headscarf concealing his face except for two beady, yellow eyes. That is, until one noticed the pair of angel wings folded down his back or the fact that he was _floating_ a foot above the ground. He held an old book in one hand and a scroll of parchment in the other.

"You are the messenger, Tsukaimon, are you not?" The creature said suddenly, breaking the unnerving silence. Its voice was barely a whisper and its eyes had an unsettling effect on the small digimon.

Tsukaimon mustered all his courage and uttered his reply, "Yeah that's me. Who wants to know?"

The stranger looked amused by the unmistakable tone of defiance and answered in the same whispery voice, "Excellent. I am Wisemon, and the president has asked me to assist you in the completion of today's deliveries."

Tsukaimon began to relax and addressed Wisemon in his usual tone of voice, "Thanks for the offer and all, but I don't know if you're gonna be much help. Some of these addresses are waaaay out of my league." He searched through his pouch and selected a letter at random. "Take this guy, Davis Motomiya, he's surrounded by all kinds of security! It would take a miracle to…"

All of a sudden the world was distorted, as if through the bottom of a soda bottle, and Tsukaimon felt a weird floating sensation. As the sensation faded his vision cleared and he found himself standing in a plush office filled with soccer memorabilia and staring at a very confused looking man in a high-end suit.

"Uh, Davis Motomiya?" the digimon asked awkwardly. The man nodded very slowly. Tsukaimon brightened instantly, "Special delivery!" he shouted. He removed an ornate envelope from his pouch and handed it to the man who looked, if it was even possible, more confused than before. Then the floating sensation returned and Tsukaimon found himself back on the rooftop.

"Whoa, how'd you do that?" he asked Wisemon with newfound respect, and a little wonder, in his voice. "You took me to the other side of town and back in under a minute!"

"It was rather simple," Wisemon replied while flipping through the old book in his hand and pocketing the parchment with the other, "My mastery of the Book has enabled me to instantaneously relocate anywhere within the time-space continuums It has come in contact with. I merely increased the effect to encompass you as well."

Tsukaimon turned toward the silhouette of the Obsidian HQ in the distance and mouthed, "Thank you!" He then snatched another letter and read, "Take me to the IWRC Tokyo research lab, office 516, Koushiro Izumi!"

The next instant he was there, surrounded by computers, spreadsheets and piles of paperwork. He looked around for the surprised human he was expecting; and found him asleep next to a computer monitor covered in cryptic symbols. 'Oh well I better put it where he'll find it,' the digimon thought. Then his eyes glowed with mischief as he got an idea. He searched the room for some tape and found it under a report about Digimon waste production… weird. He taped the envelope to the sleeping human's forehead, admired his handiwork and announced the destination on the next envelope, "The Ichijouji household, Tokyo!"

"As you wish,' Wisemon's disembodied voice replied and the next thing he knew, Tsukaimon was in a room with two beds and a pair of shocked looking boys to go with them. "Give these to your parents for me alright kids?" He said as he flung a pair of invitations at the boys. "Next stop, Kyoto! The law offices of Cody Hida, attorney of law!"

…..

Armadillomon was more bored than a cow who'd been chewing his own cud for a straight week. Cody had been at the courthouse all day, wrapping up a big case. So his partner had spent the whole day lying around the office and thinking about what to do with his free time. 'Might as well mosey on down to the snack machine and get me some of those malt balls Cody's always talking about,' he thought as he looked at the clock on the wall for the umpteenth time that day.

He began lifting himself out of the basket Cody had converted into a miniature bed for him in the office. He looked around at the neatly arranged furniture and the desk covered with law briefs and a family photo. "He hasn't got as much time for lil' ol' me as he did in the old days." The digimon said. Then he remembered the adventures he'd had with Cody in his youth and how that had changed all those years ago.

The digimon had spent the last few years stuck in the same office thinking about the good old days. He'd had difficulty coping with the idea that his partner would one day grow up and drift away from him. The human world was a lot more difficult than the digital world had been. All they ever did was work! They never had time to sit back and look at the sky.

Armadillomon was knocked out of his reverie as Tsukaimon appeared in front of the door. "What in tarnation!" He exclaimed as the unexpected guest reached into a pouch tied around his waste and pulled out an ornate envelope. "Whoa there partner! How'd you get in here?"

Tsukaimon ignored him, frowned and looked around the room as if searching for something. Then he looked at Armadillomon and brightened suddenly. The purple digimon handed him the envelope and zipped up his pouch. "Hey, uh, partner! Yeah, that's it! Could you give these to Cody Hida for me?" Tsukaimon said trying his best to look friendly.

Armadillomon looked at the envelope and noticed Cody's name written on it in gold lettering. "Well sure little fella… But what's it for?" he asked. But as he looked up he noticed that the mysterious interloper had vanished.

Tsukaimon found himself standing in the middle of a runway surrounded by men and women dressed in the latest human fashions. Looking past the models he noticed a crowd of shocked onlookers staring straight at him. He selected the letter addressed to Sora Ishida and shouted into the crowd. "Hey is there a Mrs. Ishida in the building? I got a letter for ya!"

A very embarrassed woman wearing a custom Kimono and with her hair done neatly in the traditional Japanese style stood up and walked towards the catwalk. He handed her the letter and spoke to, what appeared to be, thin air, "Alright take me to New York now!" Then he disappeared.

….

Mr. Jones settled into his couch with his partner Burgermon and switched on the TV. He was what most people would call horribly obese but what he called 'big-boned". But none of that mattered today because his favorite show was on. Mimi's Gourmet Cooking combined his two favorite things; food and pretty girls.

He never missed an episode of Mimi's show and had even memorized her various recipes. Today she was getting ready to make a chocolate chip cake. "Okay everybody, once you've mixed the batter you add the chips. Be careful you don't want to add too many!"

She began to poor in the chips when the strangest thing happened. A purple bunny-like creature appeared right over the bowl and landed face first in the mix!

Mr. Jones, his partner, and the rest of the show's worldwide audience looked on in shock as the creature proceeded to eat all the batter in under a minute. It then turned to Mimi and removed an envelope from a pouch fastened around its stomach. "Mimi Stephenson?" he asked waiting for her nod. "Here you go! Hey Boss I'm on TV!" he said as he handed her the envelope, waved to the cameras and was gone.

…

"Alright are you ready Matt? Gabumon make sure he gets this test flight right so he can take the real thing up next year!" said the voice over the radio as astronauts Matt Ishida and Gabumon strapped themselves in. The two friends were sitting in a simulator for the latest model of interplanetary rockets.

"Don't worry I'll get him through it!" Gabumon replied, "Or Sora'll use me as a throw-rug!"

Matt elbowed his partner and whispered out of the corner of his mouth, "Hey don't tell him that! We don't want her finding out about what we say about her!" The two laughed along with the astronaut on the radio.

"All right you guys here we go!" the radio operator announced, "But, wait. Why are there three of you in there?"

Matt and Gabumon looked at each other said, "What!" and looked behind them to see that one of the spare seats in the ship was occupied by a small digimon that looked like Patamon dipped in grape juice.

"I-come-in-_peace_." It said. Then it handed Matt an envelope and vanished.

…

Tsukaimon found himself on the roof of the Tokyo Digimon Hospital. He turned towards Wisemon, who was still reading, and grinned. "Thanks for all the help!" he said, "I've never had this much fun!"

Wisemon looked up from his book. "Think nothing of it," he said, "It was an interesting diversion from my never-ending study of the Book. Farewell."

The digimon waved his free hand and was gone.

"Well let's see…" Tsukaimon mumbled as he read the last two addresses. "Joe Kido, head doctor for TDH, and Kari Kamiya, kindergarten teacher at Tokyo's Shining Star Kindergarten." He flew down to an open window, entered the hospital, and gave Kido's invitation to the Floramon at the reception office.

"Important message for Dr. Kido from the Obsidian Corporation," he announced in his most business-like voice as he pulled out the letter with a flourish. "Straight from the President."

The Floramon accepted the letter carefully as her eyes lit up with curiosity. "No one is to open it but the doctor," Tsukaimon said quickly. "Otherwise there will be repercussions."

Her curiosity instantly vanished and was replaced by fear as Tsukaimon flew out of the hospital at top speed, almost hitting two Floramon carrying a stretcher. "My bad, again!" he said as he sped through the automatic door at the exit and flew towards his next destination.

"Tokyo Shining Star Kindergarten," the messenger said, reciting the final address from memory. "She's a kindergarten teacher, huh? This should be easy." Then he winged his way to his final delivery and the end of a _very_ long day.

End of Chapter 2


	4. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

"The human world is more… complex than I thought. After exiting my world via time-space tear I came upon a large collection of human dwellings, I believe they call it a See-tee. There are many places to hide but no location worthy of being called a "lair". Nonetheless my plan must advance here. The first step is to regain my champion form. This weak body is not suitable for destroying Angemon, and I will destroy him."

Odaiba's premier ice-cream parlor, "The Beckoning Cat", was always full of students hoping to take advantage of the after-school special on slushies and drinks. Kaito certainly did.

The friends from Odaiba elementary were seated in a booth next to the window, drinking heartily. Kaito and Kiseki had each downed six blueberry, seven strawberry, and nine rainbow swirl slushies. Yumi had taken forever to make her order as she examined each slushie for imperfections, finally settling on tropical punch. Shuu had taken one sip of his slushie and instantly cradled his head murmuring about brain-freeze. Michel had, as usual, opted for a glass of cold water and sat drinking at his leisure. Hiro had ordered the first flavor that came to mind and was now sipping it while reading his latest book. Akira drank nothing.

The booth adjacent to them was filled with their digimon. When the children had first met their partners, their parents had been delighted. They had all partnered with the same Digimon as their parents, (this proved to be true for Kaito, Kiseki, Shuu and Akira). But over time some of the children's unique personalities and their experiences with their partners had resulted in the in-training digimon obtaining alternate rookie forms.

Yumi's sharp wit and irritability coupled with the fact that she lacked her father's emotional trauma had affected her Motimon. It had begun to adopt a more serious attitude and had digivolved into a Kunemon instead of a laid-back Tentomon. It was known for chastising the other digimon for making uninformed choices and often objected to the children's more dangerous antics.

Michel's behavior, on the other hand, was offset by his digimon's. His Tsunomon had always responded to his human partner's loner attitude by being as friendly and social as possible. He was also interested in competitive boxing and often dreamed of the day he would gain arms. However his human partner's attitude made him an easy target for bullies and the digimon would often have to stand up for him in fights. In one of these fights Tsunomon had been greatly outnumbered by the partners of various bullies. However his training and strong will allowed him to digivolve into Bearmon and he easily defeated the in-training digimon. Where Kunemon was the brains he was the group's muscle.

Hiro, being an only child, lacked the psychological immaturity his father had during his childhood caused by the coddling of his older brother, and so was more independent and out-going. However he lacked the trauma and resulting maturity that his father gained after his digimon's first death. As a result his partner did not have the conviction to digivolve. Then the trip to Mexico changed everything.

Hiro and his Tokomon had been begging their father for a vacation and, after his first book The Demon of Destiny's Peak became a best seller, he had finally given them one. A two-week stay at a luxurious resort in Mexico. The two friends had spent their time enjoying the local food and culture. Then Hiro's mother convinced the family to go on a boat ride out to sea. Hiro's father, however, had been called away to help the local digi-destined deal with a riot in a nearby town and could not come on the trip.

When Hiro decided to lean over the boat's guard rail to get a better look at the water below he lost his balance and fell into the water. Tokomon, being the only other being on the deck at the time, jumped in after him and, in his desperation to swim, digivolved into Muchomon. He then carried his friend to safety.

Hiro's father, rather than being disappointed or angry by this turn of events, laughed until tears rolled down his cheeks. He congratulated Muchomon and laughed even harder when he realized the digimon had somehow learned Spanish.

Now the digimon were enjoying their own slushies and talking about the day's adventures.

There was no law saying digimon couldn't attend school but, since they did not require the same level of education as human's to make their way in the world, and often they lived off their partner's income or welfare funds from the digital government. In fact the only digimon that were obligated to receive a human education were the employees of the Obsidian Corporation. So since they didn't go to school the digimon spent their days exploring the city and met their partner's at the slushie shop after school.

As Hiro looked up from his book he saw Akira staring off into space. "Hey are you alright?" he asked. The boy suddenly blinked as if recalling where he was, looked at his friend and smiled.

"Sorry I'm a little out of it today," he said, and then he looked at his watch and took on a startled expression. "I'm late! My mom's going to kill me!" he yelled and then motioned for his partner, Salamon, to follow him. "I'll see you guys tomorrow!" he said as he hurried out of the shop. Then Hiro looked at his watch.

"Yeah I'd better be getting home too," he said, "I have to help my dad clean out the attic." He stood up and motioned for Muchomon to follow him out of the store.

The bird digimon nodded his head, upended the slushie into his mouth and raced out of the store after Hiro. He only stopped for a moment to turn to his fellow digimon and say, "Adiós, mis amigos." Then he was gone.

…

Hiro raced towards his house. He ran through side streets, cut through alleys, jumped over parked cars and even hopped a few fences. Muchomon ran beside him, trying his hardest to keep up despite his short legs. "¡Más despacio!" he yelled as he barely dodged a barking dog.

His human partner stopped, sighed, and reached into his backpack for his Spanish to English phrasebook. He flipped through the pages, found what he was looking for and blushed sheepishly.

"Sorry buddy, I didn't know it was so difficult for you to keep up. But next time could you at least _try_ to speak in a language I can understand. Please?" He said as he waited for the digimon to catch his breath.

"Mi mala er, sorry, my bad. I have to keep reminding myself or I just lapse into it." The digimon said. It was obviously embarrassed that it had started speaking Spanish again for no reason. It had been like that ever-since he had digivolved. "Señor Dad told me it was the default language de mi especie. It's not mi culpa.'

"I know, I know, I'm sorry I just get ahead of myself some times," Hiro said as the two began to walk at a steady pace. "I wonder if dad's working on his new book. He's been holed up in his study for the last month with Patamon. It's not healthy."

"Señor Dad will be fine." Muchomon said as they turned a corner, "He's like you with your mystery novels. How's the new one? ¿Es bueno ay?" He pointed to the book Hiro held in his right hand trying to make his meaning clearer.

Hiro looked down at his book and smiled, "Yeah it's great! Right now the hero's walking home and he meets a mysterious stranger in a trench coat who hands him a letter from the president! It's very exciting! I can't wait to see what the letter's about!"

"Eh, Hiro? This desconocido, the letter he had wouldn't happen to be one with gold trimming, would it?" Muchomon said as his attention was focused on something down the street.

"Yeah," Hiro replied, dumbfounded, "How did you know, Muchomon?" He looked at his partner curiously.

"Because, mi amigo, there is a man standing in front of our house with a letter that is muy elegante!" the digimon said, stopping as he pointed one of his wings down the street.

Hiro looked up and his eyes widened as he saw the man. He was dressed in a trench coat (just like in the book!) and had a scarf wrapped around the lower half of his face. Not only that, but Muchomon was right! He was holding a beautiful envelope with gold trimming in his right hand and was staring right up at Hiro's house.

The boy stood with his mouth gaping at this miraculous turn of events. Then he froze as the man in the trench-coat noticed him. The stranger turned in his direction and walked up the street. He carried himself with such ease and confidence, and yet he kept the collar of his coat up and never let the scarf slip down his face.

"Hello there," the stranger said in what Hiro was surprised to find was a kind voice. "I had some messages I had to get delivered today but I decided to deliver this one personally. I have to deliver it to Mr. Takeru Takaishi." The scarf muffled his voice a little so he had to repeat the name twice to get it right.

Hiro, startled at hearing his father's name, didn't respond at first but then mustered up his courage and addressed the stranger, "My name is Hiroko Takaishi and the man you're looking for is my father."

It was the stranger's turn to pause as he pondered what he'd just heard. "That's perfect!" he said, handing Hiro the envelope and offering his free hand in greeting. "I've been standing outside this building all day looking ridiculous, wondering if anyone was home! No one answered when I rang the doorbell, knocked, or called the home phone. I was at a loss! But I'm sure you can deliver this letter to your father."

Hiro took the envelope, still dumbfounded, and stared at the gold lettering on the front. "From the President of the Obsidian Corporation," he read. Then he looked back up at the man, noticed his hand was still held out, and shook it quickly. "What does he want from my dad?" the boy said studying the man carefully for some hint of his identity. But the man only chuckled.

"Oh it's nothing much, really!" he said, waving his hand dismissively to make his point. "He just wants to invite Mr. Takaishi to a little party he's throwing next week. It's nothing to worry about my boy, just a friendly message." The man winked at the boy saluted his digimon and walked away on the route they had taken to get home.

"¡Qué hombre tan raro!" Muchomon whispered as he watched the man walk away. "Who do you think he was? Hiro? Are you even listening to me?" The digimon turned to his partner, who was staring at the envelope in his hands.

Hiro shook his head as he turned to answer. "I have no idea," he said, "But if he says the president of Obsidian sent my dad this letter it must be important." He waved the letter and the sunlight glinted off the gold.

"Then prisa mi amigo! Let's get it to Señor Dad right away!" Muchomon exclaimed excitedly.

Hiro nodded and the two friends dashed into their house, all fear forgotten.

…

While Hiro was witnessing literature come to life, Akira and his partner Salamon were hurrying towards Tokyo Shining Star Kindergarten to help his mom clean up after the afternoon session.

While most kindergartens started in the morning, Shining Star was different because it promoted education for In-training digimon in the evenings for how to deal with human society. This was first suggested by Mrs. Hikari Saruwatari, a chosen child that had dedicated her life to teaching. Unfortunately her selfless nature, and her husband's recent death, had forced her to handle a heavy workload and she needed her son's help to pack up after the class.

Akira was also dealing with his father's death but he knew his mother was in worse shape, even if she pretended to be the same on the outside. Uncle Tai had tried to cheer her up and there was no end to the support and letters sent by digi-destined all over the world who knew her from her trips for the IWRC reserve containment squad, but nothing had worked.

"I can't believe I forgot!" Akira said, as he turned a corner and the kindergarten came into view. "I hope she hasn't had too much trouble!"

Salamon ran after him, panting as she tried to keep up. "I'm sure Kari won't mind if you're a little late she knows you've been distracted recently," she said as they skidded to a halt in front of the brightly painted doors. "She's not blind you know!"

Akira nodded slowly, "I know she does, but I don't want her to do too much. It's not good to overwork yourself," he said as he looked at the door and tried to counterfeit a smile. "Come on, let's do this."

He pushed open the door and was greeted by a room that looked like a tornado had swept through it. Children's toys, crayons, drawings, and books were scattered all over the typical Kindergarten classroom. The blackboard was covered with the unintelligible scrawls one would expect from beings that had never learned to write. Then Akira saw his mother putting away some books in a far corner of the room.

He called out to her, "Hi mom! Sorry I'm late; I wasn't paying attention to the time. I promise it won't happen again." While he spoke he hung his backpack on a hook and began erasing the chalkboard.

Hikari, now a Kamiya once more, looked up from her work and smiled. Akira never failed to think how strange it was that his mother still looked young even thirty-three years after the chosen children had defeated Malomyotismon. In fact he found it strange that all the chosen children aged slowly, as if their past glory kept pulling them back in time.

"Don't worry about it Akira, no harm done. Now could you help me with these books? Honestly, sometimes digimon behave worse than human children!" she said, motioning for Akira to come over. Akira smiled (with genuine happiness this time), and walked over to his mother. "How was your day?" she asked as he began picking up books.

"It was alright," he said, "Hiro and I got an earful from the English teacher for talking during a lecture." His mother turned, adopting her "teacher" expression and he readied himself for one of her famous lectures when he heard a phone ring.

"Wait one second," Hikari said as she answered her cell phone. "Hello? This is Kari Kamiya speaking, who's calling? Oh, hi Tai! What's going on, you sound freaked out for some reason?" She listened to her brother's voice as he spoke to her from the driver's seat of his car.

"Kari, you won't believe what I'm about to tell you, but I'm not alone so you'll have to try! It was amazing, first they save my neck and then they hit me with this! It's unbelievable! I'm the luckiest man in the world!" Tai's voice was shaking with excitement and his sister couldn't understand why.

"Tai, calm down," she said, lecture forgotten, "Start from the beginning." So Tai did. He told her about how he'd entered a room to negotiate with the supreme leader of the Royal Knights. How he'd lost all hope of getting out alive.

"Then what happens?" he said, his breath now ragged, "This little purple digimon comes in and bails me out with a letter from Obsidian. Then he hands me this envelope and flies away! And I'm not alone; I'll put you on conference call with the others!"

Kari, still confused, tried to get her brother to make _some_ sense. "Tai, what others? What was in the envelope?" She said, and then she heard a click and a lot of other voices flooded in over the line.

Matt's voice was shouting angrily but with some awe mixed in, "Kari you have to here this! I'm with Gabumon getting ready for a test flight when this little, purple, _thing _shows up _in the cockpit!_"

Then she heard Davis' voice through a mouthful of noodles (he always ate when he was nervous), "Kari! I was just sitting in my office when this purple fur ball just _appears _on my desk! _Special delivery_ he says!" Then his speech becomes unintelligible as he starts choking on the noodles.

Yolei's voice takes over, "It happened to me and Ken too. Our kids saw it! Sam calls it the 'Easter Bunny'. Ren said they were just sitting there when it showed up and asked them to deliver these invitations. Ken doesn't know how it got inside!"

Izzy was next, "If you're done, Yolei, I'd like to tell my story. I wake up and realize that I'd fallen asleep while doing my report on digi-egg formation, which is fascinating by the way! Did you know that when a digimon turns into a digi-egg that only its digi-core, its memories, and its basic appearance and functionality are stored as data? The rest is uploaded by the digimon that defeated it! This leads me to believe that it's possible for a digimon's uploaded data to affect the opponent's mentality! Therefore if both combatants are reduced to digi-eggs one could theorize that the digimon that hatched from the eggs would not be the exact same digimon _but _each digimon would contain trace elements of the other! This could lead to…."

Then Sora, mercifully, interrupted him, "He woke up with an envelope taped to his forehead and all the doors and windows locked _from the inside_! But that's nothing in comparison to what happened to me. It just appeared on the catwalk in the middle of one of my shows and gave me an envelope in front of everyone! It was soooo embarrassing."

"You want to hear embarrassing?" Mimi asked after Sora finished telling her story. "Think about a stuffed animal with attitude ruining your show in front of millions of people!"

Then Kari heard Joe's voice in the background, "I wish my story was that great. The messenger just dropped it off at the reception desk. He did scare my staff pretty bad though…"

"Please, can someone just tell me what's going on?" the now very confused kindergarten teacher pleaded. Then, as if in answer, T.K. started talking.

"Sorry for all the confusion Kari." T.K. said the exhaustion apparent in his voice. "Turns out whoever's in charge of Obsidian has one twisted sense of humor. He had a small purple digimon hand-deliver all the invitations, well almost all of them. My son delivered mine. He said some guy in a trench coat gave it to him."

"T.K. are you okay?" Kari said worriedly. "Have you been working on another book? You should get some sleep, it's not good to overwork yourself."

"Alright, alright," he said. "But I'm surprised you didn't get an invitation. Are you sure you didn't run into a purple digimon that looks like Patamon?"

"A purple digimon that looks like…. _Patamon_?" Kari repeated. When she said the last word her voice sounded strange, like she wasn't even talking to T.K.

"Yes," he replied, "have you run into anything like that today?" It took a while for Kari to respond.

"Yes, it's knocking on my window," she said while she stared at the strange phenomena occurring only a few feet away. "I'll call you back." She hung up the phone. "Akira, would you let it in please," she asked.

"Sure," Akira said. He walked towards the window where the creature waited patiently, a strange pouch around its belly. When he opened the window the creature flew inside.

"Thanks kid," it said, "You wouldn't believe what I've been through today!" It landed on a desk and began to brush dust out of its fur. It looked around the classroom taking in the state of disarray. "You know," he continued as he turned to look at Kari, "You should really take your own advice."

She smiled slightly at the contrast between the digimon's strange behavior and its familiar appearance. "Yeah, I think you're right," she said. "I think you have a letter for me?" The digimon nodded sagely, unzipped the mail-pouch, and handed her an ornate envelope.

"I gotta say you're taking this really well!" it said, looking her up and down curiously. "Everybody else I visited today would be staring daggers at me by now."

"Well," Kari replied, "I sort of knew what to expect, mister?" She cocked her head curiously. The creature grinned, puffed itself up and gave a military salute.

"Tsukaimon! Personal messenger for the President of the Obsidian Corporation, at your service!" Kari could tell the creature was enjoying the attention.

"Well, Mr. Tsukaimon," Kari said, "Thank you for the letter, try to stay out of trouble." Then she smiled at the creature.

"You're welcome Ma'am," Tsukaimon said. Then he blushed, bowed, and flew out the open window.

After he was gone Akira heard a noise coming from the cupboard. 'What now?' he thought. He opened the cupboard slowly, and found Gatomon sleeping inside.

"Hey Akira," she said, stretching out after her nap. "What's with all the noise?" Then she spied the envelope in Kari's hands. "Wow, that's pretty what's it say?" she asked. Then she jumped out of the cupboard and sat next to her human partner.

Kari opened the envelope and began to read aloud. "Greetings: Ms. Hikari Kamiya. You are cordially invited to attend the grand opening of the new Obsidian Corporation Headquarters situated in Tokyo, Japan. Date: New Years Eve. Formal dress is not mandatory but is suggested. I hope that you will join us as we enter a new era of Inter-World prosperity. Sincerely, Damian Grey, President and CEO of the Obsidian Corporation. P.S. You may bring a digimon partner and a guest. Have a good day.

Kari looked at the invitation in silence for a little bit. Then Akira spoke up. "Well a party sounds nice. You should go mom, take your mind off work for a little bit." Gatomon looked at Kari and nodded.

Akira watched as his mother smiled (and not one of her coping smiles but a real smile). "All right," she said, "It might be fun. But first let's clean up this room."

End of Chapter 3


	5. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

"Why? Why is it that I can preserve my digi-core, even within the DarkOcean, survive the messy process of being sown into some fool's idea of a super-weapon, and then being ripped apart. Yet, I lack the ability to achieve my true form! Do the insults of this world never cease? If I am not swatted by larger digimon I am attacked by frightened humans. Maybe it is this place, this See-tee. I might have better luck if I followed one of the paths that lead away from here. Maybe then my plans can thrive.

The Takaishi household was abuzz with excitement. Mrs. Takaishi was still getting over the shock of being invited to the most exclusive social event since the Last Supper,Hiro had spent the whole day on the internet searching for information about the Obsidian corporation, and Muchomoncouldn't stop eating. The only member of the household who wasn't excited about the strange turn of events was the one person who should've been affected the most.

TakeruTakaishi, once known as T.K., had taken the news well. He had been in his office working on his new book when he heard Hiro and Muchomon running up the stairs, well more charging than running. "Dad, dad, you won't believe what just happened!"Hiro said as he burst through the door first.

"Si,SeñorDad!" Muchomon said as he followed Hiro into the room. Then he bent over gasping for breath. "Un hombre extrañoestabamirando la casa! Élnosdioestacarta de oroparati!" the digimon continued while Takeru (only close friends used his nickname anymore) struggled to understand a single word he was saying.

"Wait, calm down," he said putting one hand on Hiro's shoulder and another on the bird Digimon's head. "Now tell me what's going on. You know better than to just storm up here." Hiroand his partner both took a deep breath. Then Hiro handed him the most expensive-looking envelope he'd ever seen.

"What's this? A letter?" he said, breaking the gold seal holding the envelope together. "Let's see here… Well that's nice of him, partner and guest, eh?" He finished reading and handed the letter back to his son. "Thanks for the delivery Hiro, now shouldn't you be cleaning out the attic?"

Hiro stared at his father, mouth agape, then he began reading the letter (Muchomon leaned over his shoulder to get a closer look). Then Muchomon broke the silence, "Eh Señor? Pardon me but. ¿Te has vuelto loco?This letter is an invitation to the biggest celebración in todo el mundo!"

All the commotion had woken Patamon. He had been napping on a cushion in the corner after he'd realized his partner wasn't going to stop writing any time soon. "Okay the Spanish thing gets really annoying sometimes. Can somebody tell me what's going on?"

Muchomon turned to the older digimon, the embarrassment apparent in his expression. "Lo siento, eh sorry sir. Señor Dad just got an invitation to the Obsidian New Years Party." He said, standing up straight with a formal tone. He'd always looked up to the more experienced digimon and had been a little disappointed when he hadn't become a patamon himself. That is until Patamon learned that Muchomon's mastery of Spanish got them free Tacos at a local restaurant.

Patamon whistled. "Hey, T.K.! Is that true?" he asked, leaping to his feet and dashing over to read the invitation himself. "Wow! Wormmon told me about this, Virus grapevine and all. He said they've built a huge ballroom, just for this! There's supposed to be all types of delicacies that have been flown in from overseas!"Patamon's mouth watered as he thought of stuffing his face. Then he began jumping ecstatically, "Can we go T.K.? _Please?_"

Takeru shrugged his shoulders and grinned. "Sure, as long as you don't eat all the food." Then he clapped his hands to close the matter. "Now let's clean that attic!" Then everyone else groaned.

...

Later that evening: As the rest of the household were chatting excitedly in the living room. Takeru decided to go through the attic himself. As he rummaged through the boxes of old clothes, Christmas decorations, and photo albums.

As he moved around some boxes an old photo fell out. He reached to pick it up and accidently knocked over even more boxes. He rummaged around until he found it under an overturned Santa Claus. Then he held it up to the light.

The photo was of a teenage version of Takeru standing alongside the other chosen children as they shook hands with the heads of state for the UN Security Council. He had been so naïve back then, so full of hope. He smiled at the irony.

Yes he had been the "Child of Hope" celebrated as one of the saviors of mankind. He'd actually believed that what they dreamed was possible. That mankind and Digimon could live together in harmony. That they could grow together to create a perfect world.

He grunted as he placed the photo in his pocket. "Some perfect world," he mumbled as he began to rearrange the fallen boxes. "First the governments were all smiles and rewards when we closed the tears. But then, when they realized the profit that could be made, they immediately begin fighting us at every turn. We didn't want digimon in the military but then they request a transfer of digimon from the Knights to serve in a 'peacekeeping' force. I don't think the Cubans or the North Koreans saw it that way when the UN 'kept the peace' by invading their countries."

He knew that not all the peacekeepers were as corrupt as the men that formed them, but what they chose to do by blindly following orders was just wrong. There was no excuse. Then the unwanted memories of his time in the IWRC reserves floated to the surface. '_Please_,' he thought. 'Not again, don't make me see it again.'

He was standing in a trench dug into some poor farmer's field. The men around him were bloody, bruised, and dressed in military uniform. The standard Digimon artillery of Guardromon and the occasional digimon-human partners were holed up in other trenches around the field and the surrounding jungle. The unit he was assisting had been assigned to take out a military stronghold where high-profile leaders of "the enemy" were raising an army of Digimon-Human partners through rigorous training and traditional brainwashing. One of the un-partnered lieutenants turned to him, a deep gash on his face from the bottom of his left eye to his chin. He began shouting over the explosions "Sir, our attempts to remove the enemy by bombardment have failed. It seems that their training and fortifications have given them the advantage. I suggest a change in strategy if we want to come out of this alive."

T.K., for he'd still been T.K. back then, shook his head. "You know we can't do that lieutenant. There are children in there! If we try anything more devastating than _this_," he said, waving his arm at the chaos above, "We risk harming them. The answer is still no!"

The lieutenant tried pleading with T.K. "Sir, I know about the children too! But if we don't gain the upper-hand soon we will _die_ out here. Think of your wife! Would she want you coming home in a body bag?"

T.K. reached a dirty hand into his uniform's coat pocket feeling the most recent letter from home. His wife was doing well, she was worried but she knew he would come home. Hiro, his six-month old son, had recently found a partner digimon, Poyomon. The letter had included a photo of the two together in the boy's crib. Hiro was holding Poyomon like a teddy bear, holding him tightly to his chest. Both were smiling.

He took his hand out of the pocket and turned to the lieutenant. "My wife would sleep better knowing I died protecting innocent children, than blowing them to kingdom come to satisfy some vague mission statement. So, once again, lieutenant, _the answer is no_."

The soldier hung his head dejectedly. Then his radio began transmitting and he placed on his ear as T.K. watched anxiously waiting to see if any good news was coming from the other field units. But the lieutenant'sface was not happy. "Sir we've been ordered to pull out," he said as T.K heard the other soldiers preparing for the departure.

"We're meeting up with reinforcements?" T.K. said still trying to find hope in this impossible situation. The lieutenant shook his head.

"No sir. They're calling in an airstrike. Every thing within five-hundred feet of the base gets blown to smithereens once those planes let loose. And their close, we have to move, _now_." The lieutenant picked up his pack and the other fighters in the trench began to run for the jungle while the Guardromon covered their escape.

T.K. didn't run. "Angemon!" he screamed into the radio, hoping his friend could here him. "They're going to kill everyone! We have to do something!"

Angemon's voice wasn't happy, "I know T.K. but there's nothing we can do. You know those bombs were made to fight human _and_digimon, and I'm in no shape to digivolve. I hate to say it, but we have no choice, its escape or die."

Angemon swooped down, grabbed T.K., and flew as fast as he could towards the jungle. The last thing T.K. saw as he kicked and screamed for Angemon to go back were the faces of children.

They were standing on the base's outer wall cheering, believing they'd won. Then T.K. heard the planes, and everything was on fire. He watched helplessly as the children, their partners, and the whole base went up in flames. Their lives and hopes extinguished in an instant.

He didn't remember fainting but the next thing he knew he was sleeping in a medical tent with Patamon standing vigil. When he woke up his partner leapt on him. "I thought you'd never wake up!" Patamon said, "We only barely got out and I couldn't shield you from some of the blast. Hey are you alright?"Patamon stopped talking as he noticed T.K.'s pale complexion and vacant stare.

Then a medical officer walked in the room to examine T.K. His burns had been extensive, covering his right arm and upper torso. But there had been no muscle damage so he was free to , on the other hand, had to rest for an hour or so to regain the energy he lost by taking the brunt of the blast.

After hearing this T.K. put on his uniform and ran to the site of the previous night's battle. The field was unrecognizable. The ground had been seared black, the base's structure had been flattened like a pancake and chunks of the wall dotted the field like cookie crumbs. Then he saw the lieutenant from the trenches. He ran up to him. "Any survivors?" he asked desperation in his voice.

The lieutenant turned, a little shocked at T.K.'s quick recovery and saluted. "Yes sir it seems a few children were hidden in a bunker under the base. We're waiting for orders from the general as to what we should do with them."

T.K. breathed a sig of relief. At least some of the children had survived and any second now they would get the order to move them to a safe location. As the signal came over the lieutenant's radio T.K. leaned in to listen.

"This is General Mesford, please report on the status of your assignment lieutenant Greene." The general's voice came booming out of the radio. The lieutenant replied hesitantly.

"Sir, the airstrike neutralized the base's defenses and wiped out the vast majority of its inhabitants. The only survivors were eight children and their digimon partners who had hidden in a bunker under the base."

"Excellent," Mesford said as T.K. noticed the children sitting with their digimon huddled in the center of a group of guardromon. "Execute them immediately."

T.K. couldn't believe his ears. He grabbed the radio from the lieutenant and began screaming into it. "Execute them?" he yelled, "What do you mean execute them? Their children! We can't just kill them!"

Mesford's voice was calm. "Mr. Takaishi, these children were being trained as enemy soldiers. That classifies them as combatants and our orders were to eliminateallcombatants. Now you can either follow orders or be court-marshaled for insubordination."

"Follow orders!" T.K. shouted, now even louder than before. "Who orders the slaughter of children?" Mesford's voice became impatient and he began to shout back.

"I do! Lieutenant Greene, please carry out the execution and restrain Mr. Takaishi until his court marshal." The lieutenant looked at T.K. as if saying 'sorry' and gave the orders.

Suddenly T.K.'s arms were being restrained by men in uniform and he tried desperately to escape. Then the lieutenant turned and signaled one of the guardromon surrounding the children. The other guardomon made space as it turned towards the children. Then it opened fire.

"Señor Dad?" Muchomon had come up the stairs looking for him. The digimon's words shocked him out of his recurring nightmare. "Señora Mom has been looking for you everywhere! She needs your help in la cocina."

Takeru smiled. "Alright Muchomon tell her I'll be there soon." The digimon nodded and went back down the stairs. Takeru followed suit and as he closed the attic door he mumbled to himself. "Good riddance." Then he descended the stairs to find his wife.

…

BlackGatomon sighed as she checked the time on a nearby clock. The exhaustion was practically seeping out of her pores. She'd arranged for the entertainment, the catering, the security and she'd double checked the guest list to make sure the seating arrangements were done perfectly. Now she just needed to go over the schedule with Damian.

Of course she could've done that hours ago if he hadn't decided to vanish in the middle of the day! She decided she would try and force his location out of Demidevimon again. So she began walking towards the elevator, double-checking her clipboard as she went.

"What could he be doing in the middle of the day?" she said as she stepped into the elevator. "I know he's excited about being here but he's never run off like this without telling _me_." She flicked her tail irritably as the elevator stopped on the fifth floor to admit a BlackToyAgumon. "Hurry up!" she snapped as the creature, carrying a load of paperwork carefully made his way into the elevator.

The digimon raised one eye quizzically and addressed the angry feline in the same droning voice his whole species used. "I take it the president hasn't returned yet?" he said carefully balancing the stack of paper. BlackGatomon's shocked expression told him all he needed to know.

"How did you know about that?" she asked eyeing him carefully. She had been sure the only digimon who knew about that were Demidevimon, Tsukaimon and herself. "Is this all some big joke? Because it's not funny!" she shouted, raising her hand as if to knock over his tower of paperwork.

"Wait!" the other digimon exclaimed as it hung on to the paperwork for dear life. "I saw him leave this morning. He was dressed in one of his trench-coats! Demidevimon wasn't with him so I knew he didn't want to be noticed."

BlackGatomon lowered her paw, much to the other digimon's relief, and seethed. She was still seething when he dashed out of the elevator on the thirtieth floor.

"That still doesn't explain anything!" she said, watching the elevator's steady ascent on the floor indicator. "All I know now is that he's not goofing off! He wouldn't have gone out in a trench-coat! Why would he leave so early?" Finally the elevator reached the top floor and she walked into the reception room.

Gazimon was still enjoying his day off and Demidevimon had been true to his word about the clean-up crew. Vegiemon were moving around the office, using their tentacle-like arms to utilize various types of cleaning equipment. They were also rearranging all of the scattered furniture after her earlier visit. They barely noticed her as she walked into the president's office.

The office was pristine, as usual, and the view from the floor-to-ceiling window was breathtaking. The rugs had been vacuumed, the bookshelves dusted, and the desk polished. In fact the only blemish on the room's beauty was the digimon she'd come to find.

Demidevimon was perched on an armrest staring intently at one of the many files that had been placed on Damian's desk. As she began walking towards him she realized he was mumbling to himself. "Interesting, yes, you're still as foolish as you were when last we met Angemon but your partner is a different story. Damian was right. Theboy could be a threat to our plans. I'll have to handle you both, personally."

He jumped off his perch as his musings were interrupted by BlackGatomon's voice, "You had better not be dragging Damian into this crazy revenge plan of yours again!" she said striding up to the other digimon as he regained his composure and slammed the file shut.

"I thought I told you to knock before entering, Girl. Anddon't worry your pretty little head about Damian I'm not "dragging" him into anything. In fact this little arrangement," he waved a wing at the stack of files, "is information he requested for his personal use. Now leave before I can tolerate your insolence no longer." He glared at her to make a point.

"Oh really," she said matchinghis glare with one of her own. "Then what is he doing sneaking around town in a trench-coat?" she said.

The bat-like digimon's eyes widened in surprise at her words then he caught sight of something behind her and grinned. "Why don't you ask him yourself?"

She turned quickly and smiled as she saw Damian trudge into the room with a scarf in his hand. Then she remembered why she'd come to the room in the first place and her smile disappeared. "Where have you been?" she asked angrily as he strode over to the coat rack in the corner and hung up his coat and scarf.

He turned to her and, seeing her angry expression, grinned. "I'm sorry my dear." He said kneeling down to her eye-level. "I had a personal message to deliver to one of our guests at next week's banquet." Then he placed his hand on her head and started scratching behind her ears.

"Oh no," she said as he continued to scratch her weak spot. "You're not getting out of this that eas…" she stopped talking as his scratching took effect neutralizing all her anger and replacing it with her animal instincts. "All right," she said as she got on all fours, stretched out her body and purred. "I'll forgive you just this once, if you'll go over everything with me right now. I've been looking for you all day!"

Damian's smile widened. "All right, I think I've kept you waiting long enough." He said picking up her discarded clipboard. "Demidevimon I'll be back when I'm done." Then he waited until BlackGatomon regained her composure, handed the clipboard back to her and walked out of the room.

Demidevimon chuckled at his partner's quick thinking. "I will try to entertain myself," he said. Then he continued his obsessive perusal of the file. "Next week, my old nemesis," he whispered to himself. "That is when the fun really starts." Then he started laughing.

End of Chapter 4


	6. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

"I have escaped the accursed See-tee by concealing myself in a shipment of fruit. It was not easy, humans are very picky about their food, but I can be very persuasive. My journey was cut short, however, when a Greymon overturned the truck. I flew away as quickly as I could but I only barely escaped the creature's rampage. The last thing I remember before losing consciousness was being lifted to safety in a human's arms."

Finally the big day came. Ken Ichijouji straightened his tie and stopped to look at himself in the mirror. Today was one of the rare occasions when he wore a full suit. Normally he spent the day in a trench-coat and grey pants, with a shirt and tie. But Yolei had insisted that he dress formal, even if the invitation said it was optional.

While Yolei had been nervous and jittery all week, Wormmon had been eagerly anticipating the banquet. He had a few friends in the Obsidian Corporation who he knew were working tonight and he was eager to meet up with them. Even the kids were affected by the strange turn of events. His daughter, Ai, who Yolei had been picking up from the airport when the invitations arrived, had been shocked when she entered the house and the eldest of her two brothers, Ren, told her the news. Ren had been slightly flabbergasted but then went to work trying to understand how the messenger had gotten in. Meanwhile the baby of the family, Sam, was hyper all week ardently voicing his belief that the messenger had been the Easter Bunny and that Ken should get his autograph. Ken, on the other hand was not so excited about the night's prospects.

"Why would he go to so much trouble?" Ken wondered as he buttoned up his jacket. "He could've just sent them by mail or via email. Why the special treatment? What is so important about gathering us all in one place?" He ran over the information he'd collected over the last week.

Damian Grey was the founder, president, and CEO of the newly founded Obsidian Corporation. He'd graduated from Harvard law school with a high GPA and a promising future ahead of him. Then he'd moved to New York City and founded his own law firm. Grey had remained quiet the next couple of years because his firm mostly handled disputes between local corporations. But when the TTSG was developed, corporations everywhere began developing new designs for their own digi-gates.

This was Grey's big break. When two corporations based in New York got into a dispute about digi-gate patents, Grey was lucky enough to land himself as a lawyer for one of the two competitors. His victory at trial put his name on every CEO's speed-dial. The law offices of Grey and co. were raking in cases and revenue. Then the Delhi Incident turned this lawyer with a lucky break into one of the most powerful men in the world.

Ken had not been involved with the Delhi Incident; he'd been working with the local police at the time trying to handle the domestic conflicts that erupted when the IWRC was dealing with it. In fact, he was partially responsible for the peaceful state Tokyo was in now.

The Incident itself was caused by something that, in the grand scheme of things, would seem rather trivial. It was the year 2031, India had become a major focal point for all un-partnered Digimon who had immigrated into Asia as it was more hospitable and socially diverse than Russia and China and the over-crowded cities where excellent places to look for partners. New Delhi was one of these cities and the digimon began forming communities in it.

This was both a good and bad occurrence. It was good because the digimon sped up the country's development by providing much needed labor and, of course, added their culture to India's melting pot. But it was also bad because not all digimon could find a partner or make friends with the human population. These digimon all had one thing in common. They were all Virus Attributes.

Humans often sorted Digimon based on their technological attribute, or what type of data their internal code most resembled. The three attributes were: Data, digimon whose internal code resembled strings of random data with no clear structure. Vaccine, digimon whose internal code resembled the strings of data that made up anti-virus protocols. And, last but not least, Virus, digimon whose code resembled the data that harmful computer viruses were made of.

Data and Vaccine attribute digimon normally got along well with humans and many became partners or integrated into human society. Virus attribute digimon, on the other hand, had difficulty fitting in for one reason: their unstable nature. They often behaved erratically and without thinking and caused a lot of unnecessary destruction. They were also very strong-willed and needed a partner with an equally strong will. This made it very difficult for them to find partners and so they often formed their own communities separate from the humans and other digimon. These communities were very common only a few years after the first migration.

This isolation, however, made them even less popular with humans who thought the Virus Digimon were organizing against them. As a result humans and some digimon began to persecute the Virus communities. When Virus types went looking for work (they refused government aid) they were often underpaid and treated deplorably by their human employers. Virus communities were often vandalized by children or disgruntled townspeople. This created major tension between the Virus communities and humanity.

This tension finally broke to the surface in New Delhi which had one of the largest Virus communities in the world. In fact it made up more than sixty percent of the population.

One fateful day a group of farmers came to the IWRC headquarters in Delhi with the body of a young boy mauled almost beyond recognition. The farmers all confirmed that they had seen a Dobermon following the boy the day he was killed.

The Digi-destined on duty that day, her name escaped Ken, had dealt with many of the rampages caused by Virus Types and had even lost an old friend in one. She had also been a member of the IWRC reserves and had seen a lot of destruction. But this, the malicious and ferocious death of an innocent boy, pushed her over the edge.

Her partner Meramon, influenced by her anger, joined her on a genocidal rampage that destroyed a large number of the Virus attribute digimon in Delhi and burned down more than half the city. It had taken the intervention of American Digi-destined Michael Washington and two Russian Digi-destined to stop the destruction. Their partners, Seadramon and two Frigimon, managed to halt the flames but they could not reverse the damage. The Virus community was now halved, homeless, and ignored. Meanwhile the human community blamed the Viruses for causing the massacre and refused to offer them compassion which only increased the Viruses' bitterness. But in the end, it was the IWRC itself which struck the final blow to the fragile peace.

Following the woman's arrest the IWRC held a trial that would determine her punishment. Virus Communities all over the world saw this as humanity finally taking notice of their plight. However, things did not go as they hoped.

As the trial progressed it became clear that the woman's status as a Digi-destined and her impressive track record was influencing the proceedings. The oversight committee in charge of sentencing was leaning towards psychological rehabilitation and a pardon, and nothing was ever said about reparation's being made to the Virus Community.

This injustice enraged Virus Digimon all over the world and they decided to forego any attempt at diplomacy with humans. Riots engulfed every major city in the world and the trial was put on hold while the IWRC stretched their forces to contain the damage.

The next three years were the modern equivalent of the dark ages. Governments were so busy trying to quell the riots that there was no regulation in most areas. Crime went unchecked, militias were formed to secure safety, and there was no end in sight. This time period was aptly named "The Riot Years".

In the midst of all the chaos one unsuspected thing happened. Damian Grey stepped up in defense of the Viruses. He argued that their anger was to be expected due to their bad living conditions and humanity's prejudice against them. He insisted that acknowledging their opinion was the first step to ending the conflict.

Soon word carried to the heads of the virus community that a human was supporting their cause. They decided that they would hear what he had to say.

Damian was invited to give a private speech reasoning with the Virus community to stop the violence. He preached about equality, justice, and a future where Virus digimon would be admired rather than feared. His words were so powerful and his will so unwavering that the downtrodden viruses believed they had finally found a human they could trust. So they unanimously voted Damian as their spokesman.

The IWRC, tired of the fighting, was quick to acknowledge Damian's demands and soon the Virus Community signed a treaty. But there was still a problem. The virus community was blamed for so much of the violence that they had difficulty finding employment and they did not want to return to their oppressed lifestyles. So they went to Damian, the only human they could trust, for advice. The proposition he had for them was mind-blowing.

Rather than being a coalition of several separate communities, what if they formed a single international corporation with all of its shares owned by Virus digimon to raise funds and establish their independence from government welfare? This would ensure that all Viruses got their fair share and would improve their public image. The idea was so appealing that most Virus Digimon joined immediately and the Obsidian Corporation was born.

At first most critics predicted the company's immediate failure. But they did not anticipate Damian's advanced understanding of human nature. The damage caused by the Riot Years had been extensive and costly. As a result, most governments were at risk of sinking into debt to repair earth's infrastructure. Damian predicted this and crafted another proposition for the UN. The Obsidian Corporation would provide all labor for the repairs and would lend the military much needed support in its campaign to restore order to society. In exchange they were to be awarded one major government contract from each nation that could afford it. The UN, desperate for a quick fix, and willing to accept any help they could get, acquiesced to Damian.

The IWRC was skeptical at first but Obsidian knew how to get results. Now that the Virus Digimon had a leader, and a goal, they took the energy once used for destruction and repurposed it for creativity and diligence.

Most of Ken's remaining information chronicled Obsidian's rapid growth from a construction and security firm into a super-corporation that also dealt with researching and developing new technologies and digi-gate development. He also had data on its charity work. But this information was not good enough.

Ken had been hoping to uncover some personal or secret information about the mysterious mastermind, but had come up with only a little more than he could've learned at the local library. In fact Damian's personal life was so secret that no one outside of Obsidian even knew what he looked like (and they weren't divulging anything). Ken had searched every database he was authorized to (and some he wasn't), but it was as if the man hadn't even existed before he started his law practice. In fact it seemed as though every photo or piece information that Ken could have used to analyze the man's psyche didn't exist. He always communicated through private messages and went out in disguise. In fact he was expected to make his first public appearance at the banquet that night.

"Ken," Wormmon said as he peeked into the room, fidgeting with his new black bow-tie. "Yolei says she's ready to go are you done? I don't know if ShadowToyAgumon will have that much time to talk, he gets pretty absorbed in his work. "

Ken fastened his cuff-links and pulled on his jacket. "All right, let's go. By the way, aren't there a lot of ShadowToyAgumon working at Obsidian? How do you tell them apart?"

Wormmon looked at Ken with a bewildered expression, "I ask myself the same thing about you humans whenever we walk into a train station," he said, "but you can always tell each other apart. We have similar instincts, and we're better looking." He straightened himself up and preened his antennae.

Ken checked his pockets to make sure the invitation was tucked away safely then he looked at his reflection in the mirror and nodded. As he walked towards the door he thought about all the information he'd collected and how little it had told him about Grey's motives. "Maybe I'll ask him myself," he joked, closing the door behind him.

…

Kari had driven out of her house earlier on New Year's Eve with butterflies in her stomach. She couldn't believe what was happening. Celebrities and important dignitaries of all shapes and sizes had been competing for an invitation to the party commemorating Obsidian's Tokyo Headquarters. But out of all the people he could have picked the president of the most powerful corporation in the world invited a lowly kindergarten teacher. She had been overwhelmed by the glamour and importance that had radiated off her invitation. But, she didn't want to disappoint Akira, he'd been so eager to see her have fun, and a party would help her forget…..

"Hey Kari," Gatomon said, disrupting her thoughts, "You should find a place to park." The Digimon, unlike her partner, had been excited at the prospect of a little excitement after years of teaching kids how to read and write. She also saw the party as a step in the right direction if Kari was ever going to get over what happened to Tosuke. She couldn't understand why human's made such strange pacts with each other, but if losing a spouse was anything like losing a partner Gatomon didn't wish it on anyone.

Kari looked at her digimon partner, a little angry at being brought back to the source of her nervousness so quickly. "Why?" she said, "We've only got five minutes before the party starts, and I don't want to be late."

"Well," Gatomon said pointing out the window, "You should find a place to park because….. We're here!"

Kari looked at where Gatomon was pointing and the butterflies in her stomach doubled in size. The Obsidian building was more magnificent than anything she'd ever seen. The building towered over every other skyscraper in the city. Its exterior was coated in tinted glass and from the ground it looked like a towering obelisk from ancient Egypt. The building shined iridescently as multicolored spotlights danced across the glass, lighting the way for invited guests. A grand ebony staircase, crammed with people, led up to a pair of golden doors. Six RookChessmon stood guard at either side of the door and a ShadowWereGarurumon in a tailored suit checked the invitation of each person who came over to the entrance.

Kari swallowed uneasily and checked her appearance in the rear-view mirror. She had worn her best clothes, a form hugging black dress, black high-heeled shoes, and a set of emerald earrings. She had thought about fixing her hair but she settled for her usual style of straight, shoulder-length, hair. When she was convinced she hadn't left anything out she parked on the curb, stepped out of the car, and bumped into a BlackAgumon.

"Hello Miss," he said, "May I see your invitation so I can park your car?" The small black digimon spoke in a british accent and wore a red bowtie around his neck. Kari handed him her invitation and he glanced at it before returning it to her. "Very good Ms. Kamiya, I would be happy to park your car in our preferred lot. I assure you the underground parking facilities are in excellent condition and your vehicle will be given the utmost care."

Kari smiled and nodded at the small creature, "Yes I would like that very much, thank you." The digimon nodded and placed a group of phonebooks on the seat. He then walked over to a container and removed a pair of stilts designed like human legs.

"I do hope this doesn't unnerve you," BlackAgumon said as he placed the stilts on his feet and used his considerable upper body strength to launch himself upright. "I have been driving using this equipment for years and have never had an accident." Kari assured him there was no problem and handed him the keys. Then she walked towards the crowd of people moving up the staircase.

She tried to find a familiar face in the crowd but either the others were already inside or they hadn't arrived yet. Gatomon gave her a quick wink and quickly made her way to the top of the stairs where she sat patiently. As she made her way up the stairs she had to maneuver quickly to keep from stepping on toes (a difficult task in high heels). As she attempted to move past a pudgy man and his partner Neemon, she slipped on the hem of another guest's floor length dress. As she fell back she uttered a cry and desperately tried to grasp something. Then she felt something catch her from behind stopping her mid fall. She was then gently placed back on her feet.

"Thank you," she said, "I haven't worn heels in a little while and these stairs are a little too much for me." Then she turned to her rescuer and stopped, dumbfounded.

He was dressed in an elegant black tuxedo with a white handkerchief neatly placed in the chest pocket. He looked in his prime and carried himself with an air of confidence. His short black hair was combed neatly and his face was shaved cleanly. He gave off an aura of grandeur just like the building. "Oh, it was nothing," he said, with a slight bow. "I couldn't let you fall, now could I?"

Kari blushed slightly at the man's politeness and forced words out of her dry throat. "No, I guess you couldn't, thank you again Mr.?" As he was about to respond another guest bumped into her sending her falling again. Thankfully her rescuer decided to give an encore performance.

"Well," he said, while setting her upright beside him, "Why don't we make our introductions inside? It would be my pleasure to help you through this little obstacle." He held out his hand to her and she took it gratefully.

With the stranger's help Kari made her way to the top of the staircase with no trouble at all. He moved quickly and carefully, zigzagging his way up the stairs helping Kari along behind him.

When they finally made it to the top of the stairs Gatomon walked over to them looking the stranger up and down curiously. "Hey Kari, what took you so long? Who's this?" She asked looking the man straight in the eyes.

The man smiled and answered the question himself, "Just a concerned gentleman helping a lovely lady up the stairs," he said, saluting the small digimon with a quick hand gesture. "I assume you're her partner, nice to meet you." He held out his hand and Gatomon shook it.

"It's nice to meet you too thanks for helping her out she can be a little clumsy." The digimon said and then she caught an angry glance from Kari. "Not that that's a bad thing," she said quickly, "Uh, Kari, shouldn't you be getting out the invitation they need to check it before you go in."

"Oh, right! Excuse me," Kari said, letting go of the man's hand nervously and reaching into her purse. But he cut her search short when he turned to the ShadowWereGarurumon.

The creature's eyes widened as recognition dawned on its face. "Oh, welcome Sir!" it said with a hasty bow, "Please come in. I apologize for the delay!" He opened the door politely, revealing the glorious ballroom that made up the first level of the Obsidian building. The stranger motioned to Kari and Gatomon to enter.

Once they were inside Kari turned to her rescuer, "I'm impressed! How could you just walk in like that? You didn't even pull out your invitation?" she said examining him even more curiously than Gatomon had.

His smile shrunk a little when he saw her expression and he replied, "I have a few connections inside Obsidian. I'm a close friend of the president's." He shrugged, a little embarrassed by her scrutiny.

She giggled a little at his nervousness and smiled. "Sorry for putting you on the spot like that," she said. "I'm even more impressed; no one's ever seen the president of Obsidian in public. What's he like?"

The man's smile returned. "Well I've always thought he's a nice person (he does have his quirks though) but you'd have to meet him to form your own opinion." He then looked around the room, "To tell you the truth I was a little nervous about going in alone, I don't know any of these people really. Then I saw you struggling on the stairs and I decided that if you were brave enough to come in alone than so was I. I apologize if that was a little inappropriate," he said bowing again.

Kari giggled again and took his hand. "It's alright. Actually I could use your help finding someone. My brother's in here with a bunch of my friends. His name is Taichi Kamiya. Could you help me find him? I'm Kari by the way." Her companion's eyes lit up with surprise and curiosity which was not lost on Kari.

"What? Is something wrong?" she said, sounding concerned. Surely this kind man wasn't a political enemy of Tai's?

The man quickly regained his composure and was quick to apologize. "I'm so sorry; it's just that the president has a project he wanted to discuss with a Hikari Kamiya and when you said your name I was a little surprised."

"It's alright," Kari said as they began to look around for Tai. "But what would he want from me? I'm just a kindergarten teacher I don't have any connections." Her curiosity was interrupted at the sight of Tai waving at her near the buffet table. "Oh there he is!" she said, pulling the man towards them.

Tai grinned as he saw his sister run up to them. "Hey, Kari we thought you weren't coming!" he said as he pointed to the other digi-destined gathered around the table drinking punch while their digimon snacked.

"See you later Kari! Have fun!" Gatomon said mischievously as she ran to join the other digimon. She began eating ravenously, though she wasn't as gluttonous as Patamon who was eating everything he could get his hands on.

Tai laughed and then turned back to Kari. Then he noticed her male companion and his expression, like any good brother's, became suspicious. "Who's your friend here Kari? You didn't mention a guest."

Kari blushed deeply, introduced her companion, and explained their meeting on the stairs. Tai's face relaxed visibly. He smiled and held out his hand which the stranger promptly shook.

"Sorry about that," Tai said. "I'm a little overprotective even at this age. I'm Taichi Kamiya, my wife wandered off somewhere but I'm sure she would be happy to meet you. By the way I didn't catch your name."

"Yeah, neither did I," Kari said, no longer blushing now that Tai's attention was on someone else. They both turned to the stranger expectantly.

"Well it's only fair," the stranger said. "My name is…" All of a sudden a ShadowToyAgumon pulled on the stranger's arm. The man turned to look at the small creature which began to speak in a bored voice. "Sir I apologize for the interruption but you're needed." The creature then stood politely at attention as the man turned to Kari and Tai.

"I must apologize again," he said giving another one of his slight bows. "We will have to complete this conversation later. But, for now, business calls. It was lovely meeting you Kari, Tai." Then he walked into the crowd with the digimon and vanished among the excited partygoers.

The siblings didn't have much time to ponder the stranger's departure because a few minutes later a trumpet fanfare silenced the room and a dozen BishopChessmon stood at attention on either side of a large door that lead past the ballroom and into (what Tai quickly told Kari) was the main office building.

A Karatenmon opened the door, its movements crisp and deliberate. Then it turned to speak, "We at the Obsidian organization are proud to present, our president!"

As it finished its announcement it stepped to one side of the door and bowed to the room at large while flourishing an arm at the open door. The crowd was still as the suspense affected everyone in the room. Then Damian appeared and the entire room clapped.

Well the entire room except for Tai and Kari. They were too shocked to clap because the man who stepped through the open door was the same man who they had been talking to just moments before.

"Welcome everyone!" he said as he waved to all of the guests. His aura of grandeur was now so strong it threatened to drown the entire crowd. "Allow me introduce myself. My name is Damian Grey."

End of Chapter 5


	7. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

"Damian. His name is Damian. I normally don't rate humans as very intelligent but he seems to be an exception. Rather than swat me or lock me in a cage he's decided to make an arrangement with me. He will ensure I am fed and my injuries taken care of and, in exchange, I must tell him about my life. I hope he has a lot of time on his hands."

Demidevimon had been watching the night's proceedings carefully. Damian had agreed that it would be best if he watched from the rafters where he would remain hidden from his old… acquaintances. He'd been there when each fool had walked in.

The Kamiya boy, with his usual love of the lime light, arrived first. Then the so called "astronaut" with his arrogant swagger, and of course his wife followed, gawking at all the petty human fashions. The computer orphan with his incessant inquiries came soon after dragging along a very flustered spouse. Then the cowgirl turned chef (at least her choice in clothing had improved) strolled in mouth hanging open when she saw the delicacies that had been picked exclusively for the benefit of a group of imbeciles. Then the good doctor almost got mauled by the doorman when he stepped on his toes. But none of them were important; they were fools and nothing more. That was the only thing he and Damian disagreed on.

Then _he_ arrived. Unlike his fellows he walked in with his head held high but kept a low profile. He moved so discreetly that Demidevimon actually had difficulty tracking him through the crowd. The digimon had been surprised by the child's more powerful personality when he'd met him as Kimeramon. But the years after the defeat of MaloMyotismon had tempered the boy's spirit. He had quite a track record.

Takeru Takaishi, after years of wondering he'd finally found a name to go with the face. The file the Information Department had collected was full of interesting tidbits. The boy had spent his college years learning to be a journalist. Then he'd taken a job with the newly formed Digital News Network. He'd met his future wife, Rei, when she joined the station a year later. After their marriage they'd had only one child, Hiroko Takaishi. At first he'd been happy with his life until his past caught up to him.

He'd been called into the IWRC Reserve Containment Squad, a special unit of digidestined who were sent in to action if the IWRC's forces were stretched too thin.

Despite having no military experience his tour had been a rousing success. Victory after victory was recorded for every mission he'd been assigned. He was a strong leader, a dedicated follower, and a loyal friend. Then there'd been a hiccup.

An incident involving an assault on a terrorist training camp ended with an airstrike and no prisoners. There were records of an attempted court marshal but the UN didn't want the press getting wind of the mission (killing children was frowned upon). So he'd been given a pardon on the condition that he was to never speak of the mission to anyone, even his family.

Takaishi quit the Reserves immediately. He also quit his job at DNN and took up writing novels. Damian had insisted they study the texts to better understand the boy's psychology. Demidevimon had to admit, the boy could write. His writing was descriptive and the narrative he had weaved around his adventures in the digital world was so engrossing that the digimon had not put the book down for a solid twenty-four hours. It also didn't hurt that the villain was portrayed excellently.

Looking at the boy now the digimon realized something. He'd thought only Angemon was worth fighting but it seemed that this boy was also a worthy adversary.

As Demidevimon leaned in closer to keep his eyes trained on his quarry he didn't hear someone joining him on the rafter. "Hey what are you doing up here?" said a voice behind him. He jumped, almost lost his footing and scrambled to regain his perch. Then he turned to confront the interloper.

…..

Gatomon hadn't had the best night so far. Kari had spent all her time with Mr. tall, dark and handsome while ignoring her partner. Gatomon was happy that Kari had found something to take her mind off her late husband but this was ridiculous.

She tried to enjoy the food but the way Patamon devoured everything in front of him made her a little queasy. That was when she'd noticed something odd.

As she looked up she saw something moving around the rafters on the ceiling. It was difficult to spot because it moved so quickly but if she looked hard enough she could just make out a fluttering of wings.

"Hmm, better take a look," she said quietly excusing herself from the others and searching for a way to climb up to the rafters. She found a giant statue of a Vajramon in a corner of the room and began climbing. When she reached its horns she jumped as high as she could and managed to grab hold of one of the rafters. Then she pulled herself up and looked for the shadow.

'There you are,' she thought to herself as she caught sight of the distant fluttering. She began jumping from rafter to rafter always keeping her eyes trained on her mysterious target. She had to move quickly and quietly to not disturb the guests, or the shadow.

Then she finally landed on the same rafter as her prey and sneaked up to it quietly. The shadow she had seen from the ground turned out to be a demidevimon. 'Ugh, just great, like the last one wasn't annoying enough,'

She noticed the creature was peering down at the crowd its eyes searching for something. This strange behavior piqued her curiosity, despite her apprehensiveness at being acquainted with the creature. "What are you doing up here?" she asked.

The creature almost fell off his perch and into the crowd below. Gatomon tried to repress a laugh as it regained its footing and turned to face her. "What I am doing is none of your concern, madam," The digimon said in a voice tinged with irritation.

Gatomon didn't know what intrigued her more; the creature's behavior or its formal speech. The last demidevimon she'd known had been rude and uncultured, not to mention stupid. This digimon carried himself with an air of nobility and, despite the anger in his voice, had bowed when addressing her as "madam".

As Gatomon pondered the bat-like creature she noticed he had returned to his careful surveillance of the room below. 'I wonder what he's looking at' she thought. Then she crouched on all fours and tried to imitate the demidevimon's piercing gaze.

The ballroom was a hexagon with the main doors located on one of its horizontal sides. The marble floor was like an enormous chess board stretching to the room's boundaries and shined from a recent polishing. A pair of rectangular buffet tables lined two of the walls, one on the left side of the entrance and the other on the wall parallel to it. These tables had been covered with crimson tablecloths which were in turn covered by beautiful silver platters filled with delicacies from around the world. Many circular tables were gathered around the other two walls so the diners could sit and enjoy their meal. ShadowToyAgumon carried trays laden with crystalline glasses of champagne, wine, and various expensive liquors around the room offering them to the guests. The rest of the room had been cleared except for a small stage that had been erected in the very center of the room. A band made up of varios digimon, including a dozen Gekomon, serenaded the room from on-stage and, despite their odd appearances, they played rather beautifully. The dancers twirled around the stage following each song's rhythm.

"Wow, you guys really know how to throw a party," Gatomon said, having tried in vain to find what the other digimon was looking at.

Her companion frowned as her comment distracted him from his vigil and sighed. Then he turned to her and started speaking in a calm, collected voice. "I assure you the individual responsible for this ridiculous waste of money," he said as he waved his right wing over the room below, "only spent it because human arrogance demands that it be done. If it were up to me this party would have never occurred." Then he gave another slight bow and turned back to his original position.

Gatomon frowned a little thinking about the other digimon's words. "Someone's a little grumpy," she said, eyeing the demidevimon up and down. "Why don't you like humans very much? I thought the head of Obsidian was human?"

The other digimon, obviously not expecting her to continue the conversation, was taken off guard by her speech. "You misunderstand me," he said, turning back to her, "I did not say I despised humans. I merely insinuated that I despise the arrogance of certain humans, like those gathered below." Then he waved his hand over the room again. "The President, on the other hand, goes out of his way to stay out of the public eye and only decided to make a public appearance for the sake of the company. He lacks the festering corruption and greed of other human leaders and treats his employees with respect. I am sure that there are other humans with such competence but if any of them are in the room below they have yet to reveal themselves."

Gatomon, realizing it was a sensitive issue for him, decided to change the subject. "Sooo, are you part of security," she said gesturing towards him with one paw, "You're the only digimon up here, and you're a virus so I'm guessing you work here."

Demidevimon never took his eyes off the room below, "You could say my role here is for insurance rather than security," he said, "As for why I'm up here, it allows me to carry out my work while remaining inconspicuous." Then he turned to look at her and shrugged. "Unfortunately it seems I was not as discreet as I thought, or that you are more observant than most." Then he gave a respectful bow and returned to his vigil.

"Uh, thanks," Gatomon said, realizing that he had answered her question as vaguely as possible. "I guess I'll take that as a compliment." In the following silence she continued her study of the other digimon. Then she was distracted by the sounds of trumpets in the background.

The source of the noise was a commotion on the wall opposite the main entrance. Gatomon had not looked at this wall during her earlier perusal and had not noticed the presence of another pair of doors on the other side of the ballroom.

The doors were ten feet tall and made of polished wood. Each of them had an elaborate golden doorknob and a maelstrom of gold leaf swirling out from their corners bringing some decoration to the otherwise plain portal.

She saw a Karatenmon open the doors and step aside to introduce the guests to their mysterious host. As Gatmon strained her eyes to see the human that the demidevimon had been so proud of she almost fell off the rafter.

"Hey, wait a minute, isn't that the guy from the entrance?" she said squinting to see if her eyes had deceived her. "How did he get in there? Do you know?" She turned to the other digimon, the excitement obvious in her voice. But she was all alone on the rafter and her companion was nowhere to be seen.

….

Demidevimon had been expecting Damian's grand entrance, unlike his feline guest, and looked patiently for Damian's signal. As he introduced himself to the room at large he gave a slight wink. This was what his partner had been looking for. He glanced quickly at the other digimon, saw her entirely engrossed in the spectacle below, and took his chance to wing his way towards one of the many side passages built into the headquarters.

The passageway was built into the end of a rafter connected to a nearby wall and was intended for his personal use. He had spoken with Damian extensively about establishing these secret corridors so the pair of them could navigate freely from room to room, not to mention to some of the more…discreet chambers in the building.

"She almost ruined everything!" he said to the unlit corridors (he preferred the dark). "I cannot believe that an entire year of planning, not to mention all the resources we spent on preparations, was put at risk because I wasn't paying attention." He growled irritably as he turned a corner and arrived at his destination, the telecommunications hub at the very center of the building.

The door was twelve inches thick and made out of the rare Chrome Digizoid, a metal recently classified as occurring naturally only within the digital world. It was so resilient that most mega-level digimon couldn't put a dent in it and the walls that surrounded the door were secretly laced with it to give them the same consistency. It also had the added advantage of being invisible on most scanners, digital or human, and was used by the militaries of all major nations. These many perks made it the most profitable export of the Royal Knights, who were rumored to have created even more powerful alloys of the metal.

'Let us hope the funds we spent retrieving it were not a waste of good money,' Demidevimon thought as he looked above the door for the camera he knew was perched there. "Open the door Datamon!" he yelled at the camera.

A speaker crackled in the dark corridor and a mechanical voice began to speak, "Well someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed," it said, a hint of mischief apparent in every word. "Does it have to do with the little kitty cat sneaking up on the great Devi…"

"Silence, fool," Demidevimon barked at the camera, angrier than he'd been all night. "It was I who Damian asked to rip your sorry circuits from the remains of MetalEtemon, and I can easily send you back! Now open the door!"

There was a short period of silence and then the voice spoke again, "I was only joking, come in." Then the door slid open revealing a room lined with state-of-the-art computer equipment taken directly from the ruins of several laboratories in the digital world and transferred here for re-installation. When Damian and Demidevimon had revived Datamon he'd been very specific about where to find sufficient equipment and, despite the digimon's _interesting_ sense of humor, he had been their greatest asset.

The different monitors were stationed around the walls of the circular room and in special hubs centered around the pedestal where the main computer was housed, and where the head of Obsidian's Research and Development was typing vast strings of data on a monitor of his own.

"Status report," Demidevimon said flying past the various Hagurumon working at the other terminals and straight up to Datamon.

"Phantomon and those spooks of his are in position," Datamon said, still typing furiously. "They've planted all the charges and are waiting for the go ahead from the president. I assume that's what you're here for?"

A Hagurumon motioned to Demidevimon who then walked over to the gear-like digimon's monitor. "My apologies sir," it said in its raspy voice, "I've pulled Phantomon up on this monitor if you'd like to speak with him," It shook one of its gears in the direction of Datamon. "The Keramon have found something he finds fascinating and you know what he's like when something fascinates him."

Demidevimon nodded at the creature and took a position near the monitor, "All too well," he mumbled remembering the last assignment Datamon had been given. Then Phantomon appeared on screen, his pocket communicator showing only his hooded face and beady eyes.

Where Datamon was the head of Research and Development, Phantomon was in charge of Obsidian's Information Department. He made sure that they knew everything there was to know in both the human and digital worlds and that all their data was accurate. This job had been entrusted to him not only because of his unique skill set but also because of his unwavering loyalty after they had revived him. He also harbored great respect for Demidevimon because it had taken all of Angemon's power to destroy him instead of the small amount that destroyed Phantomon. But tonight Phantomon and his fellow ghost digimon were using their stealth for a different purpose.

"My lord, I have done as you ordered and humbly await your next command," the creature announced in its overly dramatic fashion. He moved aside so that Demidevimon could see the assembled Bakemon saluting him.

"Excellent, begin detonation," Demidevimon said grinning in anticipation.

"As you wish," Phantomon said lifting the detonator and cutting off communications while he flew to a safe distance. Then Demidevimon turned to the Hagurumon next to him.

"Bring up any cameras we have in the area," he said. The machine digimon quickly complied and a video feed appeared on the monitor overlooking a warehouse in a dimly lit area. Then there was a bright flash and a loud explosion. "Turn it off!" Demidevimon said, shielding his eyes from the light. Then he ordered the Hagurumon to bring back Phantomon's visual feed. He complied and the ghost digimon reappeared on the monitor.

"Your grace, it is as you commanded, the warehouse is no more," Phantomon declared saluting his superior. He then showed Demidevimon the smoldering wreck where the warehouse had been moments before.

Demidevimon's lips curled up even more as he bore his teeth, "Perfect."

…

Kari Kamiya was a little angry. No, she was furious. Here she was thinking her new acquaintance was just a friendly partygoer and he turns out to be the master of ceremonies. Was this his idea of a joke? Well she wasn't going to take this lying down.

Damian had spent the last ten minutes after his arrival explaining the various branches of Obsidian and how their work benefited the world. From military peacekeeping to charity work, he'd emphasized the value that his corporation brought to people everywhere. As expected everyone clapped, except Kari.

As soon as Damian had finished his speech and placated the sycophants he proceeded towards his original spot near the Kamiyas. Tai was speechless as Damian walked up to him with the Karatenmon in tow.

"I am truly sorry I did not get the chance to introduce myself properly Mr. Kamiya," Damian said motioning for the Karatenmon to keep his distance. The digimon nodded and walked away through the crowd. "Tonight's agenda required a little theatrics on my part, but I decided to try and delay it as much as possible, I despise crowds."

Tai recovered from his stupor and managed to start talking again. "Don't worry about it please," he said, nervously fidgeting as he shook his head. "I'm the one who should be sorry for being suspicious of you in the first place. It'll never happen again."

Damian waved it off nonchalantly. "No, no. It was only right that you question a mysterious individual. Please, enjoy the party, the IWRC has provided invaluable service in inter-world diplomacy. Consider this a token of my gratitude."

Tai thanked Damian, shook his hand again, and walked away to find his wife. Meanwhile Damian turned to Kari, whose calm demeanor was betrayed by a slight redness in her cheeks.

"Miss Kamiya I assure you my remorse for leading you and your brother astray is genuine please allow me to make it up to you," Damian said as he somberly bowed his head. Kari's anger lessened, but not by much.

"Alright, but I want to know why you thought it would be _so_ funny to walk into your own party using the front door," she said as she started walking beside Damian towards the closest dining section. In her anger she failed to notice the curious eyes following the two of them across the room.

As they came to a table Damian pulled out a chair so Kari could sit then he sat on the remaining chair. "I admit it is a little inappropriate, but tonight is my first public appearance and I like to see how my guests were doing. The Virus Digimon are excellent workers but they've never come in contact with this many humans gathered in one place," he paused to motion towards the assembled crowd.

"Oh, really?" Kari replied watching Damian carefully, "Well it's obvious why the doorman just let you in. But, what I want to know is. Why use the lie about being your own best friend, and needing my help for something? Was that just a convenient cover? I don't care who you are you're going to answer me!" Her voice rose as she spoke the last few words.

Damian, now looking worried for the first time that night, started to speak and chose his words cautiously. "Well the close friend part wasn't technically a lie. I can't get much closer to myself than I already am," Then he saw that she was getting angrier and he began to speak faster. "But I wasn't lying about needing to discuss something with you, something of great importance." He motioned to a nearby ShadowToyAgumon who rushed out of sight and returned carrying a manila file which it quickly gave to Damian.

Kari's anger subsided as Damian offered her the file. She accepted it and flipped it open. It contained various blueprints, maps of Tokyo marked with red ink, and a few snapshots of Tokyo Shining Star Kindergarten. "What is this?" she said looking up at Damian curiously.

Seeing that the danger was averted Damian regained his usual calm. "It has come to my attention," he said, addressing her directly, "That the vast majority of digimon and their partners do not properly understand each other. I have also realized that most digimon outside of Obsidian are barely able to read human language and have very little understanding of the workings and history of the human world."

Kari nodded. She had studied this herself. In fact it was one of the reasons she held classes for infant Digimon in the afternoons. "Yes, I follow you," she said, "But I don't see where you're going with this."

Damian nodded and continued speaking, "Well miss Kamiya I am aware of your aptitude for educating both humans and digimon. Your work at Shining Star has been very impressive. I've even seen the tape you made in your teenage years for new human-digimon partners. It has been a great help in my efforts to teach Virus Digimon to understand humans." He gave a slight bow as he listed off her accomplishments and pointed at the snapshots of her workplace to reinforce his points.

Kari, now a little embarrassed by the lofty praise she was being given, looked down at the table rather than at her host. "It was nothing; really, I was just trying to help. I like teaching it's very fulfilling," she said.

"Nonsense," Damian replied, "Your selfless contributions have inspired me to begin a new charity project for the creation of integrated human-digimon schools incorporating a combination of human and digital curriculums to foster a better understanding between the two civilizations." Then he pointed at the maps in the file. "I have already had my personal contractors designate possible locations for these institutions and I would be honored if you would assist me in this endeavor."

As he finished speaking he leaned a little in his seat so he could see her face and waited patiently. Kari glanced at him quickly then she stared at the open file on the desk thinking.

She'd never been more than a humble kindergarten teacher and she didn't even know how to handle a major project like this. But, she'd always wanted to foster human-digimon understanding and it was good that someone with so much power wanted to help.

"All right," she said, "I'll do it. It's a good cause and it looks like you're really serious about this." Then she paused as she thought of something. "But I can't teach at all of these schools at once how are you going to train the other teachers?"

Damian nodded. "You're right," he said, "What do you suggest? This is your area of expertise after all." He gestured at her with one hand as he propped himself up with the other.

Kari considered the question carefully, her face thoughtful. Then she brightened, "What if you recorded some of my methods and used them as a basic guide for the new teachers? Then we could build on them as the schools grew!"

She looked at Damian who smiled, "An excellent suggestion. If it is alright with you I would like to help explain the situation to your students, virus digimon don't often come into classrooms you know. If you could just have the children and their digimon gathered together in a classroom by the time I arrive it would be very convenient for me."

"I don't see anything wrong with it, but, wouldn't the press follow you there? You don't really fade into the background you know?" she pointed at his expensive suit and then swept her hand around the room.

"Ah, but you'd be surprised how inconspicuous I can be when I feel up to it. As for the press, I wouldn't worry. My security has taken great care to make sure they don't get past the front door," Damian said mirroring her actions.

Kari couldn't argue with that, she didn't see a single camera. "Not a very 'public' appearance is it?" she said grinning at him.

"Sadly, no, but I like to bend the rules just a little," he said holding his right thumb and forefinger slightly apart. "Oh and don't worry about parental consent. I had my legal department handle it before hand."

Kari started as another ShadowToyAgumon (or was it the one from before?) stepped out from behind Damian's chair and handed her another file filled with signed consent forms from all the parents. "We-well, alright then I think I can arrange something on Wednesday of next week if, you can make it?"

Her companion held out his hand, "Next Wednesday it is Ms. Kamiya, I will be there by first bell," he said as they shook hands. Then they both stood up and he bowed, "I hope you enjoy the rest of your evening."

As he began to walk away Kari called out to him, "Please call me Kari."

Damian turned around, looking a little surprised, and then nodded. "Alright, Kari, I look forward to working with you." Once he finished speaking he walked into the crowd where he was instantly engulfed in people eager to make his acquaintance. It was only then that Kari saw that various ShadowToyAgumon had been diverting the crowd away from their table and were now dispersing through the crowd as well.

"Well, I guess I'm glad I came now," she said, "But I can't help thinking I forgot something…. Gatomon!" Kari spun around searching for her partner, who surprised her by dropping down from the ceiling and landing two feet in front of her.

"Scared ya, didn't I?" the digimon said, barely able to suppress her mirth. "So what did Mr. Fancy want? Guess he's more important than we thought huh?" She listened as Kari related the conversation she'd just had and nodded appreciatively. "Well, well you've been busy. I was talking to someone too but he wasn't very entertaining."

Kari looked at her, a little relieved she'd done something constructive with her time. "That's nice, I thought you'd just hang around the others all night I didn't think you'd make a new friend so soon." Then she frowned as she remembered her partner's dramatic entrance. "But then, how did you get up there?" she asked pointing up at the ceiling.

"It's a long story I'll tell you when we get home," Gatomon answered, exhaling as she remembered her fruitless search for the strange digimon. "But now I'm hungry let's get something to eat." Then they walked into the crowd heading towards where the others were still assembled.

End of Chapter 6


	8. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

_"Something strange happened today. Damian, having just finished feeding me, was listening intently to my story when I came to the chapter about the fall of the angel digimon, myself included. He made an off-hand comment about something called the "Buy bell" that spoke of a very similar event. When I pressed him for details he relayed the story to me as best he could and I was shocked to find his comparison was fitting. In fact, though I did not tell him, it was like a perfect chronicle of the events."_

Chief Naruse fumbled in his coat for the pack of cigarettes he always slipped into his inside pocket. Naruse was a portly man with a full beard and bleary eyes. But, despite his underwhelming appearance he'd survived the last three decades, he'd only been a recruit at the academy when the first digital migration had made law enforcement even more dangerous. His fingers managed to close around the box of cigarettes and he chuckled as he slipped one out, lit it and stuck it in his mouth. Then he heard someone speak behind him, "You shouldn't do that chief, it kills your lungs."

Tokyo's chief of police, shaken by the unexpected interruption, spun around to confront the newcomer. Then his face turned an interesting shade of purple as he saw who it was. "I'll have you know, Ichijouji, that I'm entitled to my bad habits just as much as you're entitled to yours. How many times have I told you that one day I'm gonna end up shooting you if you keep creeping up on me like that?"

Ichijouji's mouth turned up into a smug smile as he walked around the chief and towards the crime scene he'd been called in to investigate. Naruse had been working with the detective for years, and although he was an invaluable asset to the police force, his disregard for their authority and his smug attitude when handling big cases made him a handful. He was the reason the chief had started smoking.

"So what's so urgent you had to call me in on this?" the detective asked as they began walking. "I can't imagine anyone breaking into this place, the security's good, ridiculously good."

The chief grunted as he walked alongside Ichijouji towards the yellow security tape that had been set up nearby. "You're right about the security, the warehouses in this complex are used specifically to hold important shipments for Trans-National Corporations," he said while motioning for the two patrolmen at the complex's entrance to step aside. "The complex's surrounded by a thick concrete wall, topped with barbed wire and shattered glass. The only way in or out is through a thick steel door designed to resist a tank shell. The guards patrolling the perimeter are equipped with weapons that could stun digimon and kill humans. They're all former black ops; whoever got past them was either really lucky or really good."

The detective shrugged as they walked through the rows of warehouses toward their destination. "So why are we investigating this? You know I don't like to get my hands dirty with corporate espionage and you also know I don't like getting called out of bed _before_ the sun rises to deal with open and shut cases."

The chief grinned as he saw the bags under Ichijouji's eyes, "Oh I'm sorry," he said. "I didn't know I was interrupting your beauty sleep! But don't worry this isn't one of those open and shut cases you brag about and it's not corporate espionage, unless the TNSs are going to start blowing each other to kingdom come!"

It was the detective's turn to grunt. "If only, it would save me a lot of time. Do you have any idea how many problems these guys caused before the TTSG got built? Scientists disappeared in the middle of the night whisked away to remote locations and forced to develop digi-gate technology."

"Yeah, yeah," the chief interrupted as he flicked away his cigarette butt and lit another. "You've told me this story a hundred times, Ichijouji. But, like I always say, we have better things to do than dwell on the past. Right now I need you to focus on what you're about to see." Then they turned the corner.

Where another group of warehouses should have stood, a charred crater marred the uniformity of the facility. Forensic experts were pacing around the crater irritably; one of them heard the two men approach and turned to look at them.

Dr. Jonathan Blau was the only foreign member of Chief Naruse's forensic team. Blau was a graying man with short hair arranged neatly above his domed forehead and wrinkled face. He was renowned for his skills as a forensic psychiatrist and was often irritated by the ignorance of those without the same level of intelligence. "So, the great Ken Ichijouji, you've finally arrived. Now can my men go over the crime scene?" As he finished speaking the old man looked irritably at Naruse.

Naruse tried to shoo the forensic expert away, failed, and turned to Ken, "Why don't you two geniuses go over the psychological mumbo jumbo while I get some of my men to check up with the guards and see if they noticed anything." Then he turned around and began walking back to the entrance.

As the Chief turned a corner Ken was left alone with Blau. "So, Jon, now that you've preserved your reputation for being a royal pain, what have we got here?" His smile grew as the old man's demeanor softened visibly and he patted Ken on the back.

"Can't have him thinking I leak information on important cases to my best student," the doctor smiled too and motioned for Ken to follow him towards the center of the crater. "I assume you've come to the same basic conclusions that I have about this interesting set piece?"

Ken nodded, "Yes," he said. "The perfect symmetry of the crater suggests that various charges were placed at specific weak points around the facility. The intruders were obviously skilled experts who knew how to control the damage and ensure that only these specific warehouses were damaged." The doctor clapped his hands in a congratulatory manner.

"Very good, my boy, yes these men were professionals. But if that was it I wouldn't have bothered asking you here. We can both access military databases, track any explosive to their source, we can even have scientists scan for any residual signs of digimon. But this time, well why don't you figure it out?"

Ken, now curious, hit the speed dial on his phone. "Stingmon, what's the scanner picking up?"

Stingmon, having digivolved to reach his perch on a nearby building looked down at the device in his hands. A recent innovation by Obsidian Corporation's Research and Development branch, the Enigma Matter Reader was capable of analyzing the residual energy of unidentified origin in an area and identifying the digimon that had been there earlier. But the EMR was reacting strangely.

"Ken," the insect digimon said over the phone, "The machine says there were no digimon here in the last eight hours besides those working with the police. Whoever did this must be well-funded."

Ken raised an eyebrow. "So you're telling me that whoever did this not only has the skills to infiltrate a high security compound, overcoming not only the obvious physical barriers but also highly trained security armed with the latest weapons technology. They can also plant charges then sneak back out of the compound and somehow hide their existence? Come on Stingmon the EMR must be faulty; Grey was just messing with us last night."

Jonathan Blau had been drinking coffee, handed to him by a faithful subordinate, while the two spoke but almost choked on it when he heard Ken mention the EMR. "How do you know about the EMR? Grey hasn't even put it on the market yet, only forensic experts were even allowed to see the prototype. It's the most advanced piece of forensic technology ever used to track digimon, it has the potential to severely lessen digimon-related crime to a fifth of current levels! And now you're telling me that _the_ Damian Grey just _handed_one to you?" Then the old man's eyes widened as he realized the implications of what he'd just said.

"All right, all right," Ken said. "I was trying to keep it a secret but I was invited to Obsidian's big party last night. I didn't want to go but Yolei dragged me there. As it turns out Grey performs background checks on his guests and he thought I'd enjoy being the first detective to use an EMR. Guess it's just a piece of junk. Not even electro-magnetic pulses can leave residual data unreadable." He shrugged and gestured towards the crater, "And an EMP couldn't have caused this it would have shut down the detonation mechanism on the explosives."

Blau only smiled as he studied Ken's nonchalance. "Oh, I highly doubt Grey gave you defective machinery. I was one of the men to test the prototype and I can tell you an EMP, no matter how strong, can't even phase it. I think you'll find the lack of results a tad misleading."

Then Stingmon's voice began echoing over the phone again, "Ken I think the doctor's right the machine's starting to pick up some strange data. Apparently the bomb blast scattered residual data that isn't in the Obsidian database. Something in those warehouses had its data spread around this entire area when the bomb went off and scrambled all other data in the area."

Blau was now calmly sipping coffee once more, "Yes that seems to be the case, all computers in the area crashed at the same time last night around ten. Whoever did this knew that data would cover their tracks." He turned to face Ken, "Well I think that should give you enough motivation. Do you think you can figure out what was so important that an explosives expert decided to turn Tokyo into a warzone?"

Ken stared down at the crater and then turned to his old mentor. "All right I'll bite. Who owns the warehouses that were targeted? I know Obsidian has its own complexes so it can't be them. Was it Janus industries, the Torii Corporation, or some other digi-gate company?" Ken waited patiently while Blau finished the last of his coffee, smacked his lips and put his cup down.

"Oh you're going to love this," the old man said. He chuckled as he motioned for another cup of coffee. "The TNC that owns these warehouses goes by the name of Culverin enterprises."

….

Several days later a street in Odaiba buzzed with activity. Cars zoomed back and forth and throngs of people swarmed the sidewalks. It was so cold that no one looked twice at the man wearing a trench-coat and scarf or his bat-like partner weaving through the crowd beside him.

While the human navigated through the crowd with ease, skillfully stepping around large groups or squeezing through tight gaps the digimon was not so successful. His wings battered the people around him making it difficult for him to fly. As he struck a woman in the face and quickly apologized he growled and landed on the human's shoulder.

As they came to a crosswalk the traffic lights changed and the pair was forced to stop and wait. "Having some difficulty without the car?" Damian said as he adjusted the scarf to better hide his face. The pair had both left the Obsidian HQ before dawn through the building's hidden corridors and had spent hours walking around the city to ensure they had not been spotted. Of course the two friends had difficulty talking once the rest of the city had woken up.

"How can your accursed society function with so many of you moving around in such small spaces?" Demidevimon whispered. He was exasperated from having to apologize so many times.

Damian shrugged, "To tell you the truth, it doesn't. Now let me see, we cross here and turn left I believe," he said pulling a map-book out of his pocket, "Japan is much more complex when you're on foot, but we must keep a low profile. Wouldn't want the press swarming a group of unsuspecting school children."

"Yes, about that Damian", Demidevimon said as the light changed and they began crossing, "The Child of Light was not part of our plan. Forgive me if I sound rude but why are we revealing ourselves to the one of the only individuals capable of unraveling our entire plan. I never met this, this… What was her name again?"

"Kari," Damian replied checking the map-book again. "She asked me to call her Kari and, while it is eccentric I'm not one to talk."

"Yes, well as you know I never had the misfortune of meeting the eighth child but I hear she caused that show-off Myotismon quite a bit of trouble. Now, I'm not comparing you to_that_ imbecile, but I do think you should consider your options before endangering both our lives."

Damian nodded. "Yes I know it's dangerous but I took the liberty of reading her file, while she was once rather formidable it seems she's decided to become a simple school teacher. She hasn't seen combat in several years and she's the perfect representative for this charity operation. We can't shut down everything while we enact our plan, that would be very suspicious don't you think?" He looked up at his partner and raised an eyebrow.

Demidevimon was silent for a long time and then he reluctantly nodded. "Once again you are correct Damian. We do need the publicity, but we must tread carefully nonetheless. I do not need two angel digimon threatening my life."

Once they had finished their conversation the two companions continued silently on their way until they came to the entrance of Shining Star Kindergarten. "Well here we are," Damian said reaching up to open the door, "Let's make a good impression shall we?"

….

Kari had just finished setting up the classroom when she heard footsteps in the hall. Gatomon, having just settled into a nap on top of some shelves, opened one eye. "It looks like our guest is early. Are you going to let him in or should I?" she asked as Kari checked her watch.

"No, I'll go find him," Kari said stretching and straightening her pink jacket. "You think he'll help if we need to set up anything else?"

Gatomon closed her eye and adjusted her position on the shelves. "A big shot like him, nah. He probably has digimon walk around behind him to open doors and press buttons so he doesn't get his hands dirty."

Then the door opened and they both jumped. Then a man in a trench-coat stepped into the classroom. "I'm afraid I'll have to disappoint you," the stranger said closing the door gently behind him. "I might be head of Obsidian but the virus digimon aren't my servants. I won't ask them to do pointless work for my own benefit. It's just not fair."

The man pulled off the scarf covering his face revealing himself to be Damian. "I trust I'm not too early? It's just that my partner doesn't enjoy travelling through crowded streets so he insisted we leave early to avoid the worst of the foot traffic." He hung his coat on a nearby coat rack and straightened the simple black suit he was wearing underneath.

Kari smiled, her shock at seeing him enter soothed by his polite explanation. "Oh don't worry about it, I just finished setting up the room would you like some coffee? There's a machine in the teacher's lounge I could go get you some."

"Thank you, I'd like that very much," Damian said hanging his scarf up alongside his coat. "But I wouldn't want you to go to all the trouble let me help you." Then he followed Kari out of the room and down the hallway leaving Gatomon alone in the room.

"Huh, wonder where his partner is?" she said, her ears pricked up listening for the faintest sound. Then she heard it, soft wing beats and the last digimon she expected entered the room.

"You!" she said, suddenly alert all drowsiness draining from her body. Demidevimon stopped, his mouth agape, staring at the other digimon.

Gatomon, a little anger in her voice, jumped down from the book case and onto a nearby table coming face-to-face with Demidevimon. "So, that's why you ran off so fast. You didn't want me finding out you're Mr. Fancy pants' personal assistant!"

Now it was Demidevimon's turn to get angry, "For your information I am no more his personal assistant than you are your partner's house pet. And I 'ran off' as you claim, because I was tired of your pointless prattle."

"Prattle! Why you little!" Then Gatomon pounced on him and they began knocking over chairs and pushing tables. They were so loud that, moments later, Kari burst through the door followed by Damian holding two cups of coffee.

"Gatomon stop that!" Kari said trying to corner her digimon. "I just set everything up and now look at it!" Then Damian stepped up beside her and started yelling at his partner.

"Demidevimon stop this now!" he said glowering down at the disheveled combatants. Then they both fell silent and flew towards their respective partners.

Kari checked the damage to the room then sighed as she turned to Damian. "I'm sorry," she said, "Gatomon can get a little temperamental sometimes." Then she glowered at Gatomon as it tried to protest.

They spent the next hour or so putting everything back in order and then they drank coffee until they heard the students begin to rush into the building. The sound of digimon was also audible as more students flooded in through the front door.

"Well looks like we finished just in time, thanks to you," Kari said finishing the last of her coffee. "She threw the cup into a nearby garbage bin and Damian followed suit. The two digimon had spent the last hour as far away from each other as possible. Gatomon had returned to her nap on the shelves and Demidevimon had perched on the coat rack.

The students all flooded in, happy that they got to spend the day with their digimon, and greeted their teacher happily. They all shot curious glances at Damian and most of them jumped when they saw Demidevimon on the coat rack. Once they were in their seats and Kari had taken role one of the children, a small boy with a botamon raised his hand.

"Miss Kamiya," he said, "Who's the man standing in the corner over there and why is there a creepy lookin' digimon on the coat rack?" He pointed a finger at Damian and then at Demidevimon.

Kari gave the little boy a stern look, though softer than the glares she'd directed at Gatomon. "Motimaru!" she said, "How many times have I told you not to point at people!" then she turned to the class at large and signaled for Damian to come over.

"Boys and girls this is Damian," she began, "He's here today to watch our lessons and take notes so he can make the school a better place. The digimon over there is his partner, and he's a little grumpy right now so don't bother him until he's cooled down." Then she stepped aside and Damian began to introduce himself.

"Thank you Kari," he said giving a slight bow and turning to the class. "Hello children, as you just heard I am only here to see how your lesson goes for today and don't worry about my friend here, he won't bite." Then he walked over to the corner of the room, removing a notepad and pen from his pocket.

Kari looked to make sure he was comfortable, then she clapped her hands and class began. While she went through the day's activities Damian silently took notes. Around lunch-time Demidevimon flew over and perched on his shoulder. Then the two began whispering to each other while Damian wrote.

When the lunch bell rang Kari made sure all the children were comfortable then she went to check up on her guest. "So how am I doing?" she asked eliciting a smile from Damian as his eyes moved from the notepad in his hands to her face.

"Beautifully," he said flipping the notepad closed and beaming at her. "The way you connect with these children and their digimon is so genuine and your transformation of daily activities into enjoyable challenges actually motivates them to work! This data will be invaluable."

Kari blushed and looked down at the floor when she heard his compliments, "You're just saying that," she said watching her shoe shuffle awkwardly.

"No I'm not," Damian said, kneeling down a bit so he could see her face like their conversation at the party. "It truly is admirable work, Kari, I swear.

Suddenly the door burst open and a man in a black ski mask stormed in grabbing the nearest child and pointing a pistol he was carrying to the child's head. "Nobody move or the kid never gets to see puberty!" he said.


	9. Chapter 8

Chapter 8

"Fascinating, human culture is far more complex than our own. While all of our rituals are based on unexplained prophesies and a vague definition of "Ancient". Their culture, on the other hand, is a compilation of various ideals, philosophies, historical prejudices, complex theological religions, and even economic trends. But, no matter what I study I find mysterious similarities to my own world. Why? What is the connection between this ordered world and our chaotic one?"

Ryoji Masatoru was not what you'd call a good role model. At age twelve he'd gone to a juvenile detention center for using gasoline to set a neighbor's cat on fire. He had been on a downward slope since then. Small time robberies, grand theft auto, he'd even built up a small gang. Of course he wouldn't have gotten as far if he didn't have such a powerful partner.

Buraimon was a sword-wielding, champion digimon. His appearance evoked images of the ancient Japanese warrior, well except for him being a bird-man. He had the skill and power to make up for Ryoji's lack of caution. So, of course, he'd advised against taking any suspicious jobs they'd been offered, especially this one.

They'd been contacted a week ago through a package dropped in their mail slot. The package was filled with ten thousand dollars and a CD with "Hear me" written on it. Ryoji put it in their sound system and listened closely.

"Good evening, Mr. Masatoru," the voice that spoke out of the speakers was distorted beyond recognition. "I apologize for the secrecy but circumstances leave me with no choice but to tip toe carefully around a sleeping lion. As to the matter at hand, I have a proposition for you. In approximately one week a man in a black suit will be in Tokyo Shining Star Kindergarten classroom 2B. You'll know when he enters the building because his partner is a bat-like digimon with a bad temper. I want you to make sure he never walks _out_ of that classroom, at least not of his own volition. Delivering him to me alive is preferable but dead will not decrease the payment, ten times the amount you received in this package. I'll give you free rein to handle the situation to your liking and I'll forward further instructions when the target's dead or in your hands. Oh, and by the way, I'll be watching you."

Buraimon's opinion of this "lucky break" was obvious. "No," he said breaking the CD into pieces and throwing it out the window.

Ryoji, not so eager to give up on such a profitable job, protested. "Why not? Ever since that Obsidian building came up there's been no business. No one wants to deal with the higher level of security. But this is a kindergarten classroom! It'll be easy! We walk in, get the guy, walk out, and collect our pay. C'mon Buraimon! What's your problem?"

Buraimon rolled his eyes. "My problem, Ryo, is that it's _too_ easy. Why would somebody be willing to pay us $110,000 to capture a complete stranger? I'd also like to point out that we have _no idea_ who we're working for. What if it's some sort of police tactic to get us out in the open, or worse? Some psycho who likes blowing up kindergartens? The bad publicity could make sure we're never hired again, if we get out alive! I'm not taking that chance!"

Ryoji, still convinced the gains outweighed the costs, tried a different tactic. "But Buraimon, with this pay-off we could set up a legitimate business, then you wouldn't even have to help me with this sort of thing. Isn't that what you want?" He looked up at his partner beseechingly.

Buraimon considered his partner's words carefully. Since Ryoji's youth Buraimon had gone along with his schemes to keep his antics, and the damage they caused, to a minimum. But this much money could be the jump forward they needed.

"Alright," the digimon said, flexing his wings. "We'll take the job. But I want back-up in case anything goes wrong. Call the others."

"But they're gonna want a cut of the profits!" Ryoji said the anger evident in his voice. He did **not** want to share his big pay-day with anyone else.

Buraimon pointed to the money that had come in the package. "We'll just tell them we were paid in advance. No use fighting over appetizers when we can feast on the main course."

….

That's how had Ryoji ended up in a kindergarten class holding a gun to some sniveling kid's head. All in all there hadn't been that much security and the others had taken the bait when he'd dangled three thousand dollars under their noses.

"Now you!" he said as he pointed at the man in the black suit, "Put your hands in the air and walk down the hall and out the back door! Some friends of mine are waiting for you over there." He said gesturing towards the open door with his head. "Oh and don't try anything," he added.

The man put his hands in the air and began walking towards the door. Then he stopped just before stepping out and said, "What about my partner? I'm sure your "friends" wouldn't be pleased with just me." Then he motioned towards the coat rack.

Ryoji, still keeping his trigger finger ready, looked in the direction the man had indicated and saw a small ragged-looking bat-like digimon. _Well it could net me a nice bonus. _He thought greedily looking at the creature. Then it started speaking.

"Yes, I could ensure that you gain wealth beyond your wildest dreams." While it spoke the creature's eyes had begun to draw Ryoji's attention, pulling him in. He also found its voice soothing and couldn't look away.

"Yeah…," he said, his adrenaline fading away. "Money, lots of money. More than I could dream about," his arm relaxed and the gun slipped from his fingers as he kept staring into those eyes, those shining, red eyes.

"Oh, undoubtedly," the creature continued, and then its tone changed to one of scorn, "_Imbecile!"_ Confused, Ryoji tried to make sense of the creature's anger. That is, until he felt something strike his head with great force, and the world went black.

….

The man in the ski mask crumpled to the floor as Damian used his own gun, which had slipped from the criminal's hand when Demidevimon had hypnotized him with Evil Whisper, smashing it down on the back of his head.

"Is everyone all right?" Damian said looking up to check on Kari and her students. After they all nodded he signaled for Kari to come over and peaked out the door. Confident that no enemies were prowling the hallways, he turned to face Kari and Gatomon, who had been rudely roused from her nap and was now wide awake.

"Looks like he's the only one who came in the building, but I'm sure others will come looking for him when he doesn't come back." He said gesturing at the fallen assailant. Demidevimon took this opportunity to fly over, stopping to spit on the "imbecile", and hover near his partner.

"We have to get the children out of here," Kari whispered. The rest nodded, except for Demidevimon, who was incapable of nodding while in flight, much to his chagrin.

"You two escort them out the front entrance and call the police," Damian said, handing her the gun, which (despite being a little disgusted) she took. "We'll go check if the other classes are all right." He continued and Demidevimon landed on his shoulder long enough to nod in agreement.

Gatomon wasn't so sure about this arrangement. "Uh," she said looking from Damian to Demidevimon. "No offense, but… you guys don't exactly look like you could handle that many guys unarmed. Especially if they have higher level digimon."

Demidevimon chuckled. "Oh I assure you. We're more than capable of handing a few degenerates like this one." He grinned, a strange excitement in his eyes. "Besides, I haven't had a chance to digivolve in months!"

Kari, a little unsure herself, looked at Damian. "Wait, he can digivolve? But, you don't have a digivice." Damian shrugged.

"He's gone through extensive training," Damian said, "and he's got more than enough experience, he just prefers to retain this form to save energy." When Kari's concerned expression didn't fade he was quick to reassure her. "Besides, I've had to spend time training at the Obsidian military complexes, in case of just such an emergency. Don't worry we'll be fine, get the kids out of here and get the police."

Damian waited until Kari nodded and ushered the children down the hall and out of sight. Then he motioned for his partner to follow him down the hall. He pulled an EMR out of his pocket. "Let me see, a Ninjamon, an Apemon, and a Buraimon. Hmm, that last one's a little rare. Apparently it's been present at a lot of robberies in the past few years, nothing important. I seriously doubt they know who it is they're here to capture."

Demidevimon snorted. "No doubt they were hired by some local firm, Torii perhaps. They've never been known to hire _real_ muscle, only thugs who are more disposable then useful," he said. "I will still enjoy crushing them though."

Damian nodded, listening carefully for the other human assailants. "Try not to traumatize them too much; they might reveal something interesting when the police interrogate them."

The digimon rolled his eyes, "Very well then. I'll _try_ not to make them so scared they curl up into the fetal position and sleep with the lights on every night." Then he and Damian exchanged a quiet laugh and his human partner proceeded ahead to find the humans and give him space to digivolve.

"Show time," the digimon said as he released the pent up energy inside his body.

….

Buraimon was not pleased about how the day was going. The operation had begun with Ryoji going in to secure the target with the two other humans and their digimon partners waiting in a van behind the school. He'd flown to the top of a nearby building to coordinate their movements. So far he'd lost contact with both Ryoji and another human who had gone in the building when he'd disappeared. _Where are they?_ He thought, reaching for his swords with agitation. Then he decided to check up on the others. "Status report?" he yelled over the radio.

Ninjamon's voice answered first, the digimon was the group's scout, searching for threats in the area. "Still no police, but it's gotten really quiet in here, boss. I haven't heard any kids and Apemon's partner won't answer his radio." The ninja digimon's voice was filled with tension as if he were expecting some sort of surprise attack.

Apemon, the team's muscle, spoke up next, "Yeah he hasn't answered at all," the digimon sounded scared, "The other two won't answer either. I'm looking for them right now and…" suddenly he stopped talking.

Buraimon heard the digimon move something and gasp, "Boss, boss, I found them! Yours has a bump on his head and the others look like someone got them with a tazer or something! Wait, there's something in here! Where are you? Show yourself!" Buraimon listened anxiously as he heard Apemon swinging violently at some unseen enemy. What he heard next filled him with terror. Apemon started screaming.

"AAAAAH! GET AWAY FROM ME! WHAT _ARE_ YOU?" Then there was some frantic gurgling and Apemon was silent.

Buarimon started shouting over the radio, "Ninjamon, get out of there now! I knew this job was too good to be true! Whatever's in there isn't worth fighting!" The panic in Ninjamon's voice was palpable.

"You don't have to tell me twice!" he said, the sound of his sandaled feet running through the halls revealed he'd lost all pretenses at stealth. "I'm not sticking around to end up like, AAAAAH! HELP ME!" Then the only thing Buraimon heard was Ninjamon's tortured screams and, to make things worse, twisted laughter in the background.

_How did it get them both so quickly?_ Buraimon asked himself as he threw the radio away and spread his wings, ready to make his escape. Then he saw some sort of shadow out of the corner of his eye and unsheathed his swords.

"Show yourself, whatever you are!" He shouted twirling around, blades at the ready searching for the shadow he'd just seen. Then he heard that same bone-chilling laughter that had signaled Ninjamon's downfall and a voice whispered in his ear.

"I'm right _here." _It said, and before Buraimon could react he felt excruciating pain, as if some great eagle had dug its talons into his back. Then his swords dropped and he fell to the ground, that laughter still mocking him from just out of sight, only a horned shadow visible as Ryoji's partner crumpled, his warnings unheeded.

The last thing he heard before he blacked out was, "What a waste of time."

….

Koushiro Izumi, or "Izzy" as he was known to his friends, was not in a good mood. After last week's little adventure at Obsidian HQ things had been rather quiet. He'd completed his report on digi-eggs and had filed it away with the other reports he was planning to publish. Unfortunately that had left him with nothing to do, until last night anyway.

Out of nowhere, half the city's telecommunications network had just shut down. Of course he'd been called in to investigate and was now hard at work shifting through miles of data to find out what had caused it. However, even the Child of Knowledge despised being pulled out of bed at 2 AM.

"Ridiculous!" he said, his eyes glued to the monitor in front of him. "I've run this data repeatedly and nothing suspicious comes up! Absolutely nothing! All those computers couldn't have crashed randomly the DIN is too advanced for that!" He rubbed his eyes and yawned. His office was filled to the brim with stacks of paper. They were all reports Izzy had written in his spare time as co-head of research at the IWRC. Several take-out containers were also randomly interspersed around the room. They were the tell-tale signs of a brilliant individual who developed his mind to the detriment of personal health. As Izzy resumed his inspection of the data, his partner, Tentomon, flew in the room carrying another stack of papers.

"Izzy," he said, "Not that I'm complaining, but why are the police so interested in this? They rarely pay attention to anything we do, but today I can't go to the break room without seeing some of Tokyo's finest. Couldn't we get Ken to lean on them and make them go away?" Tentomon set down the papers and flew over to where Izzy worked.

"The police haven't told me anything," Izzy said, "But, from what I can piece together, some sort of domestic terrorist blew up a few corporate warehouses at around the same time this crash occurred. But I've checked the data for that time period and all I can find are lines of gibberish being repeated over and over again. I can't even translate the text, it's in no known language even Digicode." He pressed a few keys and the data popped up on the screen. It was composed of strings of unknown symbols and there was an obvious pattern to their arrangement.

"Hmm," the digimon said folding his wings. "Izzy, you're right. This isn't Digicode but it is very similar. Have you tried running this by some other R&D departments? The IWRC is still recovering from a decade of being stretched to its limits; a little help could go a long way." Tentomon looked up at Izzy and shrugged, "It's just a suggestion."

"Well I've already got the police working on it and they haven't figured anything out. No Tentomon. As much as I hate to say it, we're on our own this time." Then he turned back to the monitor and began running the data again.

As Tentomon returned to the stack of papers he shook himself awake. Then he mentally prepared himself for the most boring part of living in the human world, paper-work.

Record keeping was the only job he could take that let him work near Izzy. The work was boring and repetitive, and that wasn't when his partner was adding to the stack of files with his latest academic obsession. The pay was good though, and Tentomon spent most of his free time reading from the books in Izzy's office. This made him far more intelligent than the average partner digimon.

However he could only read so much about human science before he had to fly over to the break room for some relaxation. He also had to carry food back to Izzy, who only left his office to take calls or go home at the end of the day.

When Tentomon had just started sorting through the monumental stack of reports he heard someone coming down the hall. His antennae were immediately at the ready. Whoever was walking down the hall was accompanied by heavy, uneven footsteps that could only be made by a digimon.

Poised for a fight he positioned himself between Izzy and the entrance. But, as the door opened Tentomon relaxed. "Oh, hey Andromon," the rookie digimon said looking up at the android digimon dressed in a trademark detective trench-coat.

"Good afternoon, Tentomon," Andromon said stepping in and moving over to allow his human boss, Chief Naruse into the room. The human nodded at Tentomon and then turned to Izzy, who was so absorbed in his work he hadn't even noticed them entering.

Andromon had been one of the many digimon to immigrate to the human world. But, unlike other digimon, he had led an organized relocation of the guardromon population of Full Metal City and had been more than willing to form an alliance with Tokyo's police force. The alliance had been so successful that police and military organizations around the world had guardromon working alongside unpartnered humans.

Thanks to this arrangement humanity had been able to stabilize the migration crisis much earlier and Guardromon were the only virus-type digimon not affiliated with the Obsidian Corporation. Andromon had been rewarded with a permanent position as the supervisor of all guardromon on Japan's payroll, and the Police Chief's personal bodyguard. Of course he'd been forced to make some adjustments, clothing being one of them, to assimilate into human culture, but he was a well respected public figure, and had even built up a bit of a fan following among younger humans.

"Koushiro Izumi," Naruse said, raising his voice to alert the researcher to his presence. Izzy turned around to look at the chief. His face was twisted into a scowl, his anger at being interrupted evident.

"Chief Naruse," Izzy said, stopping for a moment to nod respectfully at Andromon. "I have kindly agreed to ascertain the cause of last night's widespread crash, but I find myself incapable of fulfilling my obligation when you barge into my office and interrupt my work." The researcher cocked his head angrily at the other human, the bags under his eyes testifying to his exhaustion. "Now unless you have found some scrap of machinery or data that could help resolve this issue I suggest you stop bothering me."

The chief chuckled slightly, pulling a cigarette out of his coat pocket and lighting it. "Oh don't worry," he said, "I've found something alright, or you could say Ichijouji's found something. You and I both know he has a… knack for getting results." The chief pulled a note out of his pocket and presented it to Izzy. "Regardless he wants you to send any data you find his way and, since we can't find anything else to go on anyway, my men are to pull out of your work space and give you total jurisdiction."

Izzy had read the note several times over before folding it neatly and passing it to Tentomon. "And you're okay with this?" he asked. Andromon shrugged his shoulders.

"We'd love to keep working on the case but we have other problems to deal with and I think I speak for all of us when I say the less we're involved in corporate spats the better," the digimon said, turning to the chief.

"Amen to that," Naruse said as he nodded in agreement. "We'll let you geniuses figure it out." Then his phone rang and he reached into his coat to answer it. He fumbled with his cigarette, barely able to flip the phone open. "Hello, Naruse here. Uh huh, uh huh. You've got to be kidding me… All right I'll be right there. Tell the patrol men to check for any other gunmen in the area, and keep those kids out of the line of fire, I don't want any more grieving parents on my conscience."

He smashed his cigarette and dropped the ashes in the waste basket. Then he turned to Andromon and motioned toward the door. "Come on, Robocop," he said. "We've got more trouble today." Then he shut his phone gave Izzy a wave and stepped out of the office.

Andromon nodded and rose to follow the chief, adjusting his clothing as he stood up. Before leaving he nodded at Izzy and Tentomon and began taking his usual strides down the hall. The alternating footsteps were still audible long after he'd gotten out of earshot.

"Wonder what that was about?" Tentomon said as he returned to his filing. "At least I can tell that cop joke now without looking over my shoulder, eh Izzy?"

Izzy was quiet for a little while. Then he turned towards his monitor downloaded the data to a removable hard-drive and switched the machine off. "I'm tired, what do you say we get something to eat and then go home? I have some sleep to catch up on."

Tentomon quickly shoved the stack of papers aside, literally buzzing with excitement. "What do I say? What are we waiting for? Let's get out of here!" Then they both walked out of the messy office closing the door behind them.

End of Chapter 8


End file.
